


We Don't Raise Heroes

by Romiress



Series: More to Being a Father than Having a Kid [2]
Category: Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Batman: Arkham (Video Games) Setting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Batdad, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Soldiers, Dadstroke, Family Bonding, Family Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mystery Plot in Later Chapters, POV Bruce Wayne, Recovery, Slade Wilson is a Good Parent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:46:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 50
Words: 70,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Sequel toBury Your Sons, set four years after the conclusion.Slade Wilson is an unpredictable element in Bruce's life, but he can't deny that he's been a (strangely enough) good influence on Bruce's wards. It's not so bad having another adult around the house, but Slade's tendency to handle things on his own is something else.So when Slade returns with news that he insists Bruce needs to know, Bruce isn't sure what to think.---Introducing Damian Wayne to the Arkhamverse, and exploring Jason's long term recovery as he returns to the family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some important details for anyone who wants to hop in _without_ reading part one:
> 
> \- Follows Arkham continuity through Arkham City, up to two months before Arkham Knight  
> \- Slade becomes curious about the Arkham Knight's identity and begins looking into it. Still haunted by the death of his son Joseph years ago, Slade decides to help pull Jason off his self-destructive path of revenge  
> \- Originally this takes the form of taking revenge on the villains who hurt him as Slade plays both sides, working behind Jason's back with the bats without telling them who the Arkham Knight actually is  
> \- Slade and Jason's mentor/mentee relationship goes to hell when Jason discovers the deception, ending up seriously injured in the ensuing fight  
> \- While Jason recovers, Slade ends up helping him reunite with the bats, explaining to him the truth about what happened, Tim's replacement of him as Robin, etc  
> \- The bats hold Slade at a distance, but are desperate to reconcile with Jason, especially Bruce  
> \- With no better option, Bruce reveals to Slade that he's turning into the Joker thanks to the infection, and Slade steps up to help guide the bats while they scramble to solve it  
> \- They 'solve' the issue to a very limited extent: Progress of the infection is stopped, but not cured. Bruce is left with the Joker's full memories, and ends up stepping down into a more strongly support role  
> \- Jason takes up the mantle, joining the team as the new Batman, and Slade ends up taking on a new mantle as the Gotham Knight, using the Arkham Knight's motif
> 
> That should take you, in very general terms, up to the end of Bury Your Sons. We Don't Raise Heroes takes place four years later.

Slade Wilson is not a man, Bruce has come to realize. Slade Wilson is a force of nature, a human wrecking ball. No matter how many times Bruce asked him to give some kind of notice, Slade continued to simply show up without warning. One minute Bruce is at a charity ball, sipping champagne and rubbing noses with Gotham’s upper crust.

The next he spots Slade across the room, schmoozing like he owns the place.

It’s happened more than once.

Which is why it feels so out of place when he gets a message--sent through back channels as always--letting him know that Slade’s going to be in town.

Bruce’s heart says  _this can’t be good_. Then he tries to set aside all anxieties he has about Slade to the side and think about things rationally.

 _This can’t be good,_ says Bruce’s brain.

But he does what he’s supposed to anyway. He calls Lucius to have him make sure that the Gotham Knight’s suit is ready to go. He lets Alfred know so he can stock the pantry and fridge. And then he sets about calling the rest of the family.

Dick passes--he’s in the middle of training a new protege he’s not supposed to have--but sends his best. Tim and Barbara promise to stop by.

Jason, of course, shows up less than an hour later, emerging from the cave entrance likes he owns the place.

Bruce supposes that he does. The cave’s as much Jason’s as it is Bruce’s, even if he  _has_  moved out of the manor itself.

“Master Jason!” Alfred says, immediately taking Jason’s bag. “Will you be staying long?”

“However long Slade’s here,” Jason says, making no secret of his intentions.

Bruce has to admit the house has been quiet lately. With just him and Alfred, he’s been struggling to find ways to fill the time.

It’s good to have someone else there, even if it’s only temporary.

“Keeping busy?” Jason asks him.

“Not as much as I’d like,” Bruce admits. “It’s strange being able to sleep the night through.”

“He’s adapted,” Alfred says. “I taught him to feed himself. He’s taken up golf. And I believe that Mister Fox is pleased by Master Bruce’s increased presence as of late.”

Bruce wants to go back.

He doesn’t want to admit it, but he  _wants_  to go back. He wants to take up the cowl, but it’s Jason’s now. He can’t take it away from him.

Being batman was such a huge part of his life that he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to do without it.

He’s saved from the awkward conversation by the sound of the door, and Jason darts past him, heading for the door.

It’s Tim and Barbara, and the house gets that much less quiet with their presence.

Alfred’s already making dinner as they settle in, and he can tell Jason’s anxious for Slade to show up. His foot bounces impatiently, and his fingers flex, tightening into a fist before being released in a rhythmic manner.

“So,” Tim says. “What’s everyone guessing he’s got to say?”

“I haven’t any idea what you mean,” Alfred says, and Bruce knows enough of his tone to know that Alfred’s playing dumb.

“Oh come on,” Tim says. “He never calls. Ever. The only time he ever shows up on a schedule is when we  _insist_.”

“He calls,” Jason protests.

“He calls  _you_ ,” Barbara says. “Which also means you’re the only one likely to know what the deal is.”

Bruce looks at Jason. He doesn’t  _think_  he’s hiding anything, but Jason’s gotten far too good at hiding things from him as of late.

Maybe not even as of late. Maybe he’s always been like that. But Bruce has always relief on Jason’s tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve to figure out what’s going on, and now that Jason’s gotten himself a bit more under control, he’s in the dark.

“So?” Bruce prompts, hoping Jason will be forthcoming.

“No idea,” Jason says. “Considering what he was doing, I didn’t think he’d be back for another few months.”

“Which is?” Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow. He has no idea what Slade was supposed to be doing. Slade’s  _always_  cryptic about the jobs he’s taking, citing professional courtesy, so hearing that the job was big enough to keep him away for almost six months comes as a surprise.

Jason  _hmmms_.

“You’d have to ask him,” Jason says, and refuses to speak of it again.

Slade shows up almost an hour after dinner (even if Alfred has set some aside from him). Mercifully, he’s not in his Deathstroke armor. He’s in street clothes, with a large duffel bag slung over each shoulder. They’re both big and bulky, but Slade’s strong enough that he doesn’t seem at all bothered by the clear weight.

When Jason tries to take one of the bags, Slade turns, stopping him from grabbing it.

“Oh no,” he says. “I’ve got microexplosives in one of these, they’re staying with me.”

“I believe,” Alfred says, “that we agreed to limit any explosives to the cave itself.”

“Yeah,” Tim says with mock seriousness, “no explosives in the house,  _Slade_.”

Slade rolls his eye.

“Fine,” he says. “Keep the food warm, I’ll be back.”

It says something about the situation that Slade simply lets himself into the batcave without any sort of further conversation. He knows all the (or at least almost all) of the access points in the house, and he vanishes down the steps while everyone returns to the kitchen.

Bruce is trying not to feel anxious. Slade hasn’t--not for years, anyway--done anything to harm any of them. He’s been friendly, even. He’s a good influence (if a bit too quick to resort to violence).

He has absolutely no reason to expect anything bad, but he feels a twist in his stomach anyway.

Slade emerges from the cave with a duffel bag still over his shoulder, which raises, if not a red flag, than at least a yellow flag in Bruce’s brain.

“So,” Bruce says as Slade slides onto a stool, settling in to eat with the bag still under his arm. “Jason tells me you’ve been busy.”

“Nice try,” Slade says in between mouthfuls. “But I know Jason wouldn’t have said what I was doing.”

They’ve been  _conspiring_  again. Not necessarily an  _awful_  thing, but not a good thing either. Jason’s been following the rules and acting within the law, but his tendencies to push those limits seem to directly correlate with when Slade’s around.

He still remembers what they did to Julian Day.

“Are you going to tell us though?” Tim asks. “You’re back because you’re done, right?”

Bruce snaps himself out of it and turns his attention to the matter at hand.

“I agree with Tim,” Bruce says. “You wouldn’t have come back if you were only part done with whatever you were doing, so are you going to explain?”

“I had work,” Slade says. “To start, anyway. I took a job for a client I’m not going to name that put me in charge of a small militia.”

“No way,” Jason says excitedly, clearly getting some reference that no one else at the table gets. “They’re still together?”

“The core group is,” Slade says. “They asked after you.”

Jason seems to glow with pride, but Bruce is just confused.

“Who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Slade says with a wave of his hand. “That only took up a month.”

A month is what Bruce had expected when he’d left. The fact that he’d been gone for  _months_  was the unusual part. He wasn’t usually gone so long.

“Stop beating around the bush,” Jason says. “Just say it.”

“I was leading into it,” Slade says. “While I was overseas I caught a lead on the League of Assassins.”

“Ra’s old group...?” Bruce asks, confused. He hasn’t heard a thing from them in years. “I thought they were defunct.”

“Not defunct,” Slade says. “Just relocated. After Ra’s and Talia died they had a civil war. Half wanted Ra’s dead for good. Half wanted him back. From what I can tell they spent around a year trying to find a new source for a Lazarus pit.”

Bruce goes stiff. He doesn’t know what Slade’s going to say, but he knows he’s not going to like it. If Ra’s is dead, it means the league is almost permanently fractured. He  _thinks_  that’s probably the better option, but it’s hard to say. If Ra’s  _isn’t_  dead...

“Did they find one?” Bruce asks. The table’s gone quiet--everyone knows what sort of a threat Ra’s is.

“One,” Slade says. “But not a particularly good one. Not a pure one.”

“That would be enough for him,” Bruce says.

“It was,” Slade agrees. “They brought him back to life, as much as you can describe his state as  _life_. He was a glorified zombie, rotting on his throne atop the pit.”

Bruce can’t miss the  _was_.

“And you killed him,” he says, forcing himself to take a breath.

It’s not a violation of their contract. It’s not a violation of  _any_ agreement they’ve ever made. The rules were  _no killing in the suit_ ,  _no killing in Gotham_ , and  _no working in Gotham_.

Slade’s Gotham Knight suit is in storage downstairs, and wherever Ra’s was, it wasn’t Gotham.

“Good riddance,” Jason says, and Bruce frowns at him. He’s made little secret of his thoughts on the matter.

A part of Bruce worries that Jason is  _more_  than talk. That one day he’s going to find out where Jason buries his bodies.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

“What about the rest of the league?”

“Once I traced them back to their hideout, it was a simple enough matter to take them out,” Slade says, which means  _I killed all of them_. Or maybe just all of Ra’s loyalists. “They had Talia’s corpse, you know. The plan was to bring her back once Ra’s was better, only the source wasn’t pure enough to even make an attempt. They needed all of it to keep him him from falling apart.”

Bruce feels a stab of frustration. Helplessness. He’s trying to do better at identifying his emotions rather than just bottling them up, but it’s easier said than done. His relationship with Talia was tumultuous at best. Even years on, he’s not sure how he feels about her death.

He should have done better.

“But,” Slade says, “while I was working my way through the league I  _did_  find out about a little secret of theirs.”

Slade pushes his plate aside, and Alfred collects it on pure instinct. Slade hefts the duffel bag up, dropping it onto the counter.

A weapon? That’s the first place Bruce’s head goes. Something related to bio-terrorism. Maybe something related to the infection. 

Bruce clenches his fist. Wouldn’t  _that_  be appropriate? Finding out that Ra’s was behind the whole thing. That would have fit  _exactly_  in his schemes, wouldn’t it have?

No, he’s being bitter, and he shakes his head, pushing the thought away. Ra’s hated the Joker. He wouldn’t have wanted to turn Bruce into him.

He’s expecting Slade to unzip the bag and show off whatever he’s found, but instead he slides the heavy duffel bag across the counter top to Bruce.

“Consider it a birthday gift,” Slade says with a smile on his face that means nothing but trouble.

Bruce considers not opening it. The whole thing feels like one of Slade’s  _schemes_. Even if most of them have worked out in his favor, he still doesn’t like them. They have too much of a tendency to end with people getting killed.

“Go on,” Slade says, settling back in his seat. “But you’re going to want to leave the restraints on.”

The what? Bruce feels a sudden, intense feeling of dread.

He reaches out, grabbing the zipper and opening the bag in one fluid movement.

Inside the bag isn’t a weapon. Inside the bag is a  _boy_ , bound, gagged, and blindfolded.

“What the  _fuck_ ,” Tim says, speaking for literally everyone in the room.


	2. Chapter 2

The room descends into chaos immediately, and the only relief is that Dick isn’t there to see it.

Even Jason--who is  _absolutely_  on Slade’s team the majority of the time--looks horrified.

“You brought me an  _orphan_?” Bruce asks. He doesn’t understand how things went sideways so quickly. Slade’s status as a  _good person_  was always distinctly tarnished by the massive amounts of murder on his record, but kidnapping a small child to present to Bruce as a gift feels  _well_  beyond his standard.

Alfred looks absolutely horrified, his mouth open as he gawks at Slade.

“What the  _fuck_!” Jason yells, jumping to his feet. “He’s a fucking  _kid_.”

Jason goes for the restraints, right as Slade yells  _No!_ , and then things get, somehow, even more chaotic.

For Bruce, it’s like he’s watching things in slow motion. The restraints keeping the child--because god, they are a child, they look ten or maybe eleven at the oldest--are high tech and secure. They also are intended to come off easily when you pull the right latch. Bruce is pretty sure they’re a  _Wayne Enterprises Security Solution_ , which only makes the situation that much worse.

Jason pulls the latch, and the child goes from  _a helpless captive of Deathstroke_  to  _the physical incarnation of violence_  in the span of half a second. He  _springs_  out of the bag, headbutting Jason in the face, and when Tim stands up, the kid kicks him in the chest.

He’s wearing a _blindfold_ , and he still manages to land the kick. Tim falls backwards, and Alfred yells something as both Slade and Bruce surge forward. Bruce manages to grab a leg as Slade pulls the kid into a bear hug, pinning his arms against his sides as he thrashes and kicks. There’s a lot of power in his kicks, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bruce is twice his size, and Slade is twice his size  _with_  super strength. 

Jason rejoins the fray, grabbing the kid's other leg, blood pouring from his nose as Tim steps forward, attempting desperately to defuse the situation.

“Woah woah woah,” he yells, trying to wave Barbara away as he does his best to keep his distance from the frantic flailing. “We’re not going to hurt you. This is all - this is a big misunderstanding.”

Bruce isn’t entirely sure that it  _is_  a big misunderstanding. Is this Slade’s idea of a joke? That Bruce was so bored at home that he thought he’d kidnap a street urchin for him to raise?

“Stop squirming,” Slade says, and Bruce can  _hear_  Slade start to squeeze. The kid in his arms should be in a good deal of pain, but rather than going limp he instead just fights harder. Bruce only just manages to keep his grip, but Jason doesn’t, and only just manages to dodge a kick.

“He’s going to get hurt!” Barbara shouts.

“He already fucking hurt me!” Jason yells back. “He can manage himself just fine!”

Barbara digs into her bag, pulling out what looks like an auto-injector and holding it out.

“Someone just - someone do it before he gets more hurt.”

Bruce abandons the leg he’s been trying to hold, snatching up the injector. It’s not good. He doesn’t  _want_  to drug a kid. But the situation is doing no one any favors, and if it keeps up, someone’s going to get a lot worse than a bloody nose.

He dodges a kick, using a hand to steady the boy’s head while his other uses the injector pen on his neck.

It’s not half as instant as he’d like, but after almost a whole minute of furious struggling, the energy starts to go out of him, and the struggles begin to weaken.

Eventually, he goes limp, and Slade releases him, letting the boy sag onto the floor.

“Should have warned you about-” Slade starts to say, but Bruce isn’t having it. He might not be wearing the cowl anymore, but he hasn’t let himself slack off, and he uses every bit of his strength to grab Slade by the front of his shirt, slamming him into the wall.

“You brought a  _child,_ Slade,” Bruce says, unable (and unwilling) to contain the fury in his voice. “You kidnapped a  _child_  and you brought him into my house in a  _duffel bag_. Of course he lashed out. He’s  _terrified_.”

“You need to calm down,” Slade says, his tone perfectly even.

“No,” Jason snaps, gently feeling out the damage to his nose. “Nope. I’m with Bruce on this one. You are so far out of line it’s fucking ridiculous.”

He’s  _really_  mad. Bruce doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jason so angry at Slade. For that matter, he’s not sure he’s ever seen Jason angry at Slade at all. If they fought, they kept him from seeing it.

“I expected this to go differently,” Slade says. “This was supposed to be a dignified conversation-”

“A dignified conversation about the fact that you  _kidnapped a child to give me as a gift?”_  Bruce asks. He has no idea what Slade is on about, but he wants it to stop  _right then_.

“Slade,” Tim says, his voice strained. “Just... start at the beginning.  _Why_  did you kidnap a kid? There has to be a reason.”

Bruce sure as hell hopes there’s a reason, but he doubts that the reason is going to be convincing enough to stop him from kicking Slade out of the house permanently. There are lines, and Slade has not just crossed this one so much as he’s danced a jig on his way over.

“He’s not just  _a kid_ ,” Slade says. “He was part of the league.”

“So you killed everyone he knew and spared him?” Jason asks, his voice a  _growl_. The blood still leaking down Jason’s face is only making him look angrier, but Alfred’s already on top of things, producing a medical kit as he insists Jason sit down so he can look at his nose.

“No,” Slade says, before realizing that he probably misspoke. “Yes. Listen, there’s a lot-”

“You are so shit at explaining,” Jason says. “Stop trying to lead up to whatever you’re going to say and just  _say_  it.”

“He’s Bruce’s son.”

Bruce very suddenly forgets to breath, his eyes dropping down to the sedated boy on the floor. The tanned skin. The black hair. He doesn’t know what color his eyes are, but the more he looks...

“Holy  _shit_ ,” someone says, and Bruce is so focused on running the timeline in his head that he’s not even sure who it is.


	3. Chapter 3

“Next time,” Jason says as Alfred steps away from his face, “start with that.”

“Hold on,” Tim says. “You can’t believe that, right? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes sense if he’s twelve,” Bruce says. He already knows exactly where the boy fits. He already knows who his mother is. And the more he thinks, the more sense it makes.

“He does share a surprising number of similarities with Master Bruce as a boy,” Alfred observes, smartly keeping his distance.

Bruce releases Slade, stepping back to sit down on one of the stools. He’s not confident in his ability to stay standing as he buries his face in his hands.

His  _son_.

“Talia's?” He asks.

“That’s what they said,” Slade says. “Grandson of the Demon’s head. After his mother died and his grandfather became a glorified zombie, there was a power struggle over who was going to end up with him and the bodies. From what I understand, Ra’s loyalists won, although I saw signs that the other side wasn’t going to take that lying down.”

His  _son_. His son and he had  _no idea_.

“Does he even know who I am?” Bruce makes himself ask.

“Hard not to,” Slade says, and Bruce manages to lift his head enough to glare at him.

Slade waves the glare off.

“They call him  _Ibn al Xu'ffasch_.”

“Translation?” Jason asks. “Am I the only one who isn’t -”

There’s a clear dawning realization on his bloody face.

“Are you telling me they call him  _Son of the Bat_?”

“Like I said,” Slade says. “He knows.”

Bruce wants to go to sleep. An hour ago he was worried about finding things to do, and now he desperately wishes that was his largest concern.

His  _son_.

“You kidnapped him?” Bruce makes himself ask.

“I tried to get him to come quietly,” Slade says. “Didn’t work out so well. Reasoning wasn’t working with him, so I figured you’d have a better time of it. Tied him up and escorted him back to Gotham. Got about halfway here before he managed to escape.”

“And then you  _chased him down?”_ Tim asks, sounding, somehow, even more horrified.

“No,” Slade says. “And then he stabbed me in the neck. Severed my carotid artery. I think he was too used to the league’s version of revival, because when I popped back up I caught him off guard.”

Of course. If he was raised by the league...

“Which is why you had him restrained,” Bruce says. “To keep him from stabbing one of  _us_  in the neck.”

“That was the idea,” Slade says. “Didn’t exactly work out.”

“Next time,” Jason says, getting up into Slade’s face. “Start with the important details instead of trying to be dramatic about things.”

Barbara says something that sounds an awful lot like  _you’re one to talk,_ and Jason glares at her.

“I’m serious!” Jason protests. “Someone could have been seriously hurt. Considering our track record, that someone would have been me.”

Bruce sighs into his hands and lifts his head. None of this is solving anything.

“We need to... to ensure he isn’t going to hurt anyone until I can talk to him,” he says. His tongue feels like lead. It feels so... insulting. Like a betrayal. He’s known the kid for ten minutes and he’s already working out how to put him down.

“That’s it,” Tim says. “I’m calling Dick.”

“What?” Jason asks. “Why? We can handle this.”

“It’s not about handling this,” Tim says. “This is about him needing to know that...   _Ibn al Xu'ffasch_  exists.”

“Tell Dick,” Bruce says. “But don’t make him come here. He has his hands full with his own work. Tell him we’ll keep him posted.”

“I must admit,” Alfred says, “I find myself a bit at a loss. But I believe that we have a soft restraint prototype down in the cave which might be useful...?”

Bruce doesn’t even remember which prototype Alfred’s talking about, but Jason obviously does.

“Hold on,” he says. “I’ll get it.” He leaves quickly, heading down into the cave.

He can’t believe he’s going to let them restrain a  _child._ How did Slade’s return manage to be so much worse than he thought?

“He’s awake,” Slade says, nodding his head towards the still form on the floor. “Probably still heavily sedated, but his breathing changed. He’s awake but faking.”

Bruce isn’t sure he’d have noticed. Probably in ideal situations, but Slade has plenty of advantages he doesn’t. The biggest of which is that it’s not  _his son on the floor_.

The son he didn’t know existed.

“Hey,” Bruce says quietly. “Just bear with us, alright? We’ll get you situated and... we’ll talk this out.”

Bruce doesn’t know  _how_. How can he talk it out? There're a million complications. A million things he suddenly has to deal with.

Jason returns, holding up the cuffs. His nose seems to have stopped bleeding, but he still needs to clean up.

“Soft-hold cuffs,” Jason says. “Intended to bridge the gap between hospital wrist restraints and actual handcuffs.”

Bruce tries to let that console him, but it does little. He’s still restraining a child. He does it anyway, even as the boy starts to struggle weakly. He’s too sedated to do much else.

“Please,” Bruce says quietly. “Please just give me a moment, and then we can talk.”

That doesn’t stop him.

“Alright,” Tim says. “Well, this has been  _exhilarating,_ but someone’s got to patrol and I have a pretty good feeling it’s going to be me.”

Barb looks at the boy on the floor as Bruce cuffs his ankles together and shakes her head.

“I do not envy you Bruce,” she says. “But if you need anything, you know where to find us, alright?”

Bruce expects Jason to make a snide comment about Tim getting his pupil to do it, but Jason seems too distracted to manage it.

“I need to shower,” he says. “And to get a change of clothes. And then...”

Jason glares at Slade.

“We’re going to have another talk.”

Bruce lets them file out, turning his attention to the boy on the floor. It’s wrong, and the  _wrongness_  of it bothers him, so he bends down, scooping him up.

He squirms immediately, which makes it hard to keep a hold on him.

“You’re going to fall,” Bruce says desperately, but it falls on deaf ears.

“Alfred,” he says. “Can you - I’m going to use a guest room.”

“I’ll make preparations,” Alfred says with a nod. “But please be careful Master Bruce. Even if he’s a child, he was still raised by the league.”

Bruce clenches his jaw, nodding as he shifts his grip, trying to make absolutely sure he’s not going to fall. It’s hard going, but he does what he can.

He’s so  _young_. Younger than Dick was. Younger than Jason was.

Younger, but ten times as angry.

Bruce isn’t sure he’s going to be able to get through that anger.


	4. Chapter 4

If Bruce had a choice, he’d probably have done  _the talk_  in his room. It’s safe there. Homey. But he knows he doesn’t  _really_  have a choice, because no matter who the boy in his arms is, he’s still dangerous. He was raised by the league.

So instead, he plops him down onto a bed in the stripped out guest room. Years ago the room was an  _actual_  guest room, but after a particularly alarming situation where Tim was vomiting blood and needed quarantine the room had to be stripped. Now, it stands as-is, with a bed and nothing else in it. There’s no carpet, no drapes, and effectively nothing to destroy.

He hopes that isn’t going to be important.

He debates the pros and cons before deciding to remove the blindfold first. He’s hoping that being able to see might calm him down, because the boy’s obviously agitated. Bruce supposes that he has every reason to be exactly that, but he still has to be careful as he removes the blindfold, exposing brilliant green eyes.

He might take more after Bruce physically, but his eyes are all his mother's.

Bruce sighs, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. He can feel a headache coming on.

“I’m going to remove your gag,” Bruce says. “So we can talk. Alright?”

The boy doesn’t acknowledge what he’s said. He’s too busy glaring at him.

Bruce isn’t stupid enough to try and remove the gag by pulling it down with a finger. If he does, he’s not sure he’ll  _have_  that finger the next morning. Instead, he steps around, leaning over to undo it from behind.

Ibn al Xu'ffasch headbutts him in the chest, and Bruce clenches his jaw, working through the pain.

No, not even pain. He’s still weak and doesn’t have enough leverage for it to  _really_  hurt. It’s just misplaced frustration.

The gag falls away, and Bruce steps back. The boy doesn’t say anything, and Bruce regrets his choice to not bring a chair into the room. He doesn’t like that his choices are to stand looming over him, or to sit on the floor and be staring up at him.

He settles for looping around the bed, sitting on the other side with his legs folded, and then reaching out to turn the boy around.

“Do you have a name?” Bruce asks. It seems like a good place to start.

The boy’s response is to scowl, his lips pulling back to show his teeth.

“You know my name,” he says.

Bruce hopes he doesn’t. He hopes it’s a  _title_  more than anything. Surely Talia couldn’t have just called him  _son of the bat_  every time she wanted to speak to him? It seems so unlike her, but then so does having a  _child_  without telling him. 

It seems more like her to use the boy as leverage against him. To try and force his hand.

“No,” Bruce says. “I don’t think I do. Your mother would have given you a  _real_  name, even if the league called you something else.”

He’s not sure which Ra’s would have used. Would he have recognized any other name for him?

“You do not deserve it,” the boy says, which tells Bruce that the answer is, mercifully, a yes. Talia gave him another name.

“Listen,” Bruce says. “I think there’s been a... a large misunderstanding.”

Misunderstanding probably doesn’t cover it.

“No,” the boy says. “There is no misunderstanding.”

There’s a knock at the door, and even before it opens, Bruce is  _sure_  it’s Slade.

It is.

“Everything alright in here?” Slade asks.

The boy has started to  _growl_ , his teeth bared. It’s clear he isn’t a fan.

“They’re fine,” Bruce says. “We’re talking.”

Slade makes a  _hmmm_  and pulls away, closing the door behind him.

There’s no question he was checking to make sure the boy hadn’t escaped, but that doesn’t stop the interruption from having made things worse.

“You are a traitor,” the boy says. “You betrayed the league. You betrayed my grandfather, and you betrayed my mother.”

“Listen,” Bruce says. He doesn’t want to fight. God, he really does not want to fight. “You’ve probably been told a lot of things that weren’t true. I was never with the league. Your mother...”

Bruce stops himself, and makes himself take a deep breath. He isn’t sure he wants to have that conversation. Even years later, the pain is still fresh. It’s something he was working up to, but had never quite gotten around to in therapy.

“My relationship with your mother was complicated,” he finally says.

“You are a fool if you think that,” the boy says. “There was nothing complicated about it. You were the successor. You were to be the Demon's Head. And you spat in my grandfather’s face and refused the honor.”

“I never  _wanted_ to be his successor,” Bruce says. He feels like he’s not getting through to him. He feels like he’s not listening at all, and he’s not sure how he can make him. “Your grandfather decided that for himself. I had no say in things.”

“Your inaction allowed my mother to die!” The boy yells, and even bound as he is, Bruce can tell he’s trying to stand, to leap across the bed and tackle Bruce to the floor. Only the thick bindings are keeping him from doing that.

Bruce forces himself to exhale. To keep his calm. He can’t let himself get worked up, though he’s already worked up whether he admits it or not.

“I failed to save your mother,” Bruce says. “And I’m sorry for that. But if I could have, I would have saved her.”

“You let her die!” The boy shouts again.

“I tried to save her,” Bruce says again, even as the boy shouts. He has to make him understand, but it’s not easy. It might even be impossible. “Please understand that. I didn’t know - she never told me about you. If I had known, I would have come to get you.”

The parallel hits him like a truck. Another boy left holding out hope for a man who didn’t even know they were waiting for him. He’s failed twice over.

Bruce recoils like he’s been hit, and he forces himself to take another breath. He can’t let himself get worked up. Getting worked up is when things are the most dangerous. But how can he  _not_  get worked up with the situation being what it is?

“You let her die!” He shouts again. “You let her die and now you’ve cast your lot in with men like Deathstroke! You turned your back on the league!”

Of course it would come back to that.

“Slade is...” What the hell is Slade? Their relationship is far past the point of having a clear and conventional definition. “A friend.”

“A friend who  _murdered the league!_  A friend who  _destroyed my birthright!”_

Bruce wants to believe that the league wouldn’t have put a child in charge, but if the child was Ra’s own grandson, raised from birth...

No, he’s pretty sure they absolutely would have put him in charge.

“I don’t kill,” Bruce says. “If Ra’s mentioned me at all, he’d have mentioned that. And that extends to others. I didn’t ask Slade to do what he did.”

He feels like he’s pushing Slade into the line of fire, but there’s no lie there. He wouldn’t have killed the league. He’d have arrested them, but he wouldn’t have  _killed_  them. Even so, he feels a stab of guilt for saying it, like he’s trying to ease the boy's anger towards him by pointing it at Slade instead.

“No,” Bruce says, trying to correct course. “I know you’re hurting. I know you’re upset.”

“I am not upset,  _father_ ,” the boy spits. “I am  _angry_. I will have my revenge, even if you are too much of a coward to believe in such things.”

“The league were corrupt,” Bruce says. “Rotting from the inside. Their intentions were good, once upon a time, but Ra’s let it go too far. In the end, they were just as bad as the people they claimed to hate.”

“How  _dare_  you!” The boy yells, and through sheer  _force of will_  manages to straighten up, the muscles in his legs straining as he does what he can to tower over Bruce. “You know  _nothing_  of the league’s work!”

“It’s called the  _League of Assassins_ , not the  _League of Charity Workers_ ,” Bruce says, fighting not to raise his voice. He shouldn’t be yelling. He has to keep calm. “You can’t make the world a better place by killing everyone who disagrees with you!”

There’s a frantic knock at the door, but it isn’t Slade this time. It’s Alfred, looking alarmed.

“Master Bruce?” He asks. “Are you quite alright? You are being  _exceptionally_  loud.”

Bruce makes himself stop. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. He counts it out, a neat four-seven-eight pattern of drawing in, holding, and releasing.

He has to calm down.

“Pathetic,” the boy says, and Bruce does what he can to ignore it. It’s harder than it should be.

“I’m fine,” Bruce says. “Thank you Alfred.”

Alfred does  _not_  look convinced, but after several moments he finally draws back, closing the door behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s silence, but there’s nothing nice about it. It’s the kind of silence that’s ruined by the knowledge that eventually they’re going to have to talk again. Even with his breathing steady once more, it doesn’t change the situation. The boy is still angry. He’s still swearing revenge. There’s still a million and one things Bruce has to tell him.

“I loved your mother,” Bruce says. “I still do. Even after everything that happened. Even after I found out that our entire relationship was based on a lie... even then I still loved her. I wanted to believe she’d choose me over the league. That we could be together once things were over and done with. But a... a bad man took that chance away.”

“A  _bad man_?” The boy says, his voice dripping with disgust. “I am not a child. I know who the Joker is, and the role he played in my mother’s death.”

“You are a child,” Bruce says. “No matter what training the league has given you, you’re still young. You should have had a childhood. You should have had a  _life_  outside of training.”

Bruce doesn’t  _know_  that he doesn’t, but he can’t imagine it being any other way. Ra’s was a violent extremist. The odds that he sent his grandson to school are slightly less than the odds of Bruce waking up to find himself on the moon.

“Have you even spoken to someone else your own age? Even  _once_?”

The silence makes it absolutely clear that the answer is  _no_.

“I wish I had known about you,” Bruce says. “You could have had a different life. A  _normal_  life.” He can already see the protest coming, so he cuts it off. “The life you had wasn’t healthy. Someone shouldn’t be training all the time. Someone your age shouldn't be  _killing_.”

Bruce can’t lie to himself and pretend that isn’t what happened. Ra’s would have made him kill, but Bruce doesn’t want to ask about it.

There’s a distant  _thunk_  that Bruce recognizes as the sound of a door being slammed open, and he braces himself, turning towards the door and wondering why every single person he knows insists on interrupting.

It’s not Alfred or Slade. It’s Dick, panting heavily as he gawks at the boy sitting on the bed.

“Holy-” Dick starts, cutting himself off. “I thought they were  _joking_.”

“They wouldn’t joke about something like this,” Bruce says. “Weren’t you supposed to be doing a training exercise?”

“I  _was_ ,” Dick says. “This takes priority. I told him to handle patrol on his own for the night and decided to make sure Tim wasn’t pulling my leg.”

“That wasn’t necessary,” Bruce says. “I would have kept you in the loop.”

Dick makes a little  _hmmm_ sound that Bruce is sure means  _I don’t really believe you_.

“Nightwing,” the boy says. “The first Robin. Overly acrobatic, with a weakness for showmanship.”

Bruce isn’t surprised that he knows all about the various figures in his life.

“Oohh,” Dick says. “He’s got me pegged.” He doesn’t sound at all offended, even though the explanation was far from kind towards him.

“His name is Dick,” Bruce says. “That’s what you should call him.”

“Nightwing,” the boy says, “is his current alias.”

Bruce wonders just how current the information is. Does he know who Jason is? Does he know what he’s been up to? The League still existed, but their power’s fallen dramatically since Ra’s was at his full strength.

“Well,” Dick says. “I guess I should leave you two alone.” He gives Bruce a wink and heads out, closing the door behind him.

Bruce gets up and locks the door. If Jason--or, heaven forbid, Tim, returning to the mansion just to pry--decide to come in he thinks he’s going to pop a blood vessel.

“You have poor taste in proteges,” the boy says. “I’ll do a better job than them.”

Bruce feels his brain suddenly falter.

“What?”

“I will do a better job than them.”

He’s pretty sure he knows  _exactly_  what he means, but he’s hoping he’s wrong.

“In what way?”

The boy rolls his eyes.

“Playing the fool is beneath you,” he says. “Your men have destroyed the league, but that is only half of my birthright. You will train me, and I will take Gotham when I come of age, as my grandfather intended years ago.”

“You aren’t going to  _take Gotham_ ,” Bruce says, his voice strained. “We protect it. Guard it. We don’t rule it like Ra’s wanted to.”

“We should.”

“We shouldn’t,” Bruce says. “That isn’t our place.”

The boy narrows his eyes at him.

“Listen,” Bruce says desperately. “There’s a lot you don’t know. I don’t know what you’re thinking-”

“Then allow me to explain,” the boy interrupts. “Your men have destroyed the league and spoiled my birthright. But I have no intention of lying down and letting that be the end of me. You have already taken on several proteges, each more useless than the last, and I will now correct that mistake. I will take my place as Robin, you will train me, and when I come of age you will step down, and I will become the Batman.”

There are so many issues with the statement that Bruce doesn’t even know where to begin. With the fact that Slade is most certainly not  _his man_? With the insinuation that his Robins are  _useless_?

“Your information,” Bruce says. “Is out of date. That plan isn’t going to happen.”

“You have no right to deny me,” the boy says. “I am your blood.”

“I have every right to deny you,” Bruce says. “And I will. You need  _stability_ , not... this. Not more training. You need to be able to function in the real world. You’re coming in and demanding things that I can’t give you, and you haven’t even told me your  _name_.”

“You haven’t earned it,” the boy snaps. He’s so  _angry_  that it’s hard to keep up with. “My mother and grandfather might have thought highly of you, but I’ve seen nothing but an old man, afraid to take proper action. When I first threatened your allies you should have  _acted_  and stopped me, and instead you had to rely on others to do the work for you. You’ve let yourself become weak.”

“No,” Bruce says. That’s a step too far. “They make me strong. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be dead, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Then you’re weaker than I thought,” the boy says. “I will have to move up my schedule, and take the mantle sooner.”

Bruce  _knows_  he isn’t going to want to hear it, but he tells him anyway.

“You can’t.”

“I can do whatever I please,” the boy says. “I will not be stopped just because you think I need to  _play nice_  with those who are beneath me.”

“I can’t give you the cowl,” Bruce says. He means to say more, but he can’t manage to get more than a few words in edgewise before he’s interrupted again.

“You absolutely can. I will prove my worth, and you will understand that I am worthy of it, and then you will retire.”

“I’m already retired.”

It catches the boy off guard, because he falters, just for a moment. Rather than anger, there’s  _confusion_  in his eyes, and then as quick as Bruce can register it, it’s gone.

“What?” He asks. “Are you saying you threw away all the work you have done in establishing your identity? Building a new one from scratch-”

Bruce interrupts. He can’t let it keep going.

“I’m not Batman,” Bruce says. “I retired years ago. I assist, but I don’t wear the cowl. I passed it on.”

The boy narrows his eyes.

“Then show me to whatever fool you passed it to, and I will beat them and take it for myself.”

Bruce takes a deep breath.

“No,” Bruce says. “They earned it. The cowl belongs to them.”

“You are an idiot and a fool,” the boy says. “Who better to give it to than your son? I have been trained for this all my life. I would have been - I  _will be_  - the best choice.”

“I  _did_  give it to my son,” Bruce says. He’s trying so hard not to let it get on his nerves, but it is anyway. He’s arguing with a  _child_ , and that fact isn’t lost on him.

For the first time in what feels like ages, the boy is completely silent. He looks upset, like Bruce has just jerked the rug out from under him. Bruce thinks he’d probably look less upset if Bruce had tossed him out the window for the insult.

“I... was not aware there was another,” the boy says quietly.

Bruce isn’t even going to pretend to be surprised that Talia didn’t tell him.

“No,” Bruce says. “I didn’t think you would be. That’s why I’m trying to... to explain things to you. So you can understand.”

For a brief, hopeful moment, Bruce thinks it’s going to stick. And then, just like that, it’s gone, and the anger is back.

“I can manage,” the boy says. “I will prove myself to be the superior son and take the mantle properly. The only change is who I am taking it  _from_.”

Bruce lets out a groan.

“Listen,” Bruce says. “You’re probably hungry, right? Why don’t we get you some food.”

“I can go up to nine days without food while still remaining functional. I am not hungry.”

“Just because you  _can_  doesn’t mean you  _should,”_ Bruce says, trying very hard not to think about how he knows the exact time he can endure without food. “If I untie you, can you promise not to attack anyone?”

He doesn’t get an answer right away, which is good. It means he’s thinking about his response rather than giving him an automatic lie.

“...You have my word,” he finally says.

Bruce isn’t sure how much weight he should give to that, but he’s not sure he has another option. He doesn’t  _want_  to leave him tied up. It’s upsetting, down to the very core of his being.

Bruce doesn’t get kicked in the face as he undoes the ankle restraints. He doesn’t get headbutted as he frees his wrists either.

“If you aren’t giving me your name,” Bruce says. “I still need something to call you.”

“Ibn al-”

“That isn’t a name,” Bruce says. “It’s a description. I’m not going to call you  _son of the bat_  any more than I’d call you  _boy with green eyes_.”

The boy pauses to consider it for a little while.

“Hafid.”

Bruce’s brain scrapes back through all the Arabic he’s ever learned. It’s not exactly an easy language, and there are plenty of double meanings. The only one he can come up with is  _something_  like protector. He’s too rusty to get much more, but he makes a note to reference and make sure.

It isn’t a bad name, he supposes.

“Hafid,” Bruce confirms. “But I hope you’ll trust me with your real name soon.”

He really, really hopes so.


	6. Chapter 6

Bruce is expecting Hafid to try something. It feels almost inevitable.  _Eventually_  he’s going to do something stupid, like try and go out one of the many impact-resistant windows they walk beside as Bruce leads him down the hallway.

Maybe he’s not giving him enough credit. He’s smarter than that, and as they walk his head swings around, making no secret of his intentions. He’s sizing up the entire place, looking for escape routes. It’s something Bruce himself does, only usually he’s a lot more subtle about it.

“Poorly defended,” Hafid observes, entirely incorrectly. Bruce lets him think that.

Alfred’s in the kitchen when they arrive, cleaning up the mess from earlier. He glances up the moment they appear in the doorway, smiling at the pair of them.

“Hopefully things went well, Master Bruce?”

“As well as can be expected,” Bruce says. “He’s asked us to call him Hafid.”

Alfred’s eyebrows go up as he looks the boy over.

“Am I to assume that’s not his name?”

“No,” Bruce says. “But we’re going to have to earn it.”

Alfred snorts.

“Master Hafid it is then,” he says, holding his hand up over his heart and giving Hafid a short bow. “A pleasure to meet you properly.”

Hafid twists his head around, narrowing his eyes.

“Where’s everyone else?”

“I believe that Mister Wilson has headed down into the cave to check his suit,” Alfred says. “And both Master Jason and Master Richard have decided to work off their energy sparring in the training room.”

Bruce decides that introductions might help things. Introductions will serve to humanize the others to him. Hopefully, it’ll make Hafid less likely to attempt to disembowel them.

“Alfred,” Bruce says. “I was thinking I might show Hafid the training room. Do you think you could prepare something to eat when we get back?”

“Of course,” Alfred says, already starting. “Any requests?”

The question is obviously directed at Hafid, who smiles up at Alfred with the smuggest smile Bruce has ever seen.

“Khoresht bamieh.”

It’s a mean choice. Bruce knows enough to have a general idea of what it is--an okra stew--but it’s clearly a choice made specifically to stump Alfred.  _Specifically_  chosen because he wouldn’t have heard of it.

“I’ll have to check if we have okra,” Alfred says without missing a beat. “If not, would ghormeh sabzi do?”

Hafid makes a face, and Bruce has to hide his smile. It’s a stupid, childish power play, an attempt to prove something that doesn’t need to be proven, but Hafid is a  _child_ , no matter what he thinks, and it suits him.

It also makes him that much happier that Alfred’s there.

“...That would be acceptable,” Hafid says.

“Excellent,” Alfred says. “I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

Bruce places a hand on Hafid’s back, and he jumps, jerking away with a snarl.

No touching, then. Alright. He can deal with that. He’s never been a particularly physically affectionate person, and it’s all too easy to slip back into old habits.

“This way,” he says, gesturing for Hafid to follow.

He makes sure the boy is kept firmly in view. He’s not letting him slip away, but he doesn’t even make an effort.

The training room is set on the far side of the mansion, a large room with workout equipment on one side, and a large space for sparring in the middle. It’s not the cave--there’s no robots or real weapons--but it’s a good, neutral space for practice. Of all the boys, Dick’s the one who uses it the most, taking advantage of the gymnastics equipment that isn’t present down in the cave.

Jason and Dick sparring is always something to behold. In terms of training styles, the two are almost polar opposites. Dick is precise and flashy, while Jason is fast and brutal. Sparring without costumes, Dick should absolutely win. His entire fighting style is based on melee combat using his eskrima sticks or hand to hand if he loses them. Jason, on the other hand, is a jack of all trades. He fights hand to hand, he fights with improvised weapons, and he’s deadly with a gun if he thinks Bruce isn’t paying attention.

Bruce is pretty sure that the only thing stopping Jason from using a gun (and from killing criminals) is that he’s weighed things out and decided that Bruce’s approval matters more to him.

It was an uncomfortable realization when Bruce first made it years ago, and it hasn’t stopped being uncomfortable since then. Bruce doesn’t like the feeling of power it gives him, the feeling that he’s twisting Jason’s arm into behaving against his own desires.

He tries not to think of it as he steps into the room to watch the fight.

The problem--which is immediately apparent to anyone who watches them fight--is that while Dick  _should_  be ahead of him, Jason’s too adaptable for him to actually consistently win. Dick has a fighting style. Tim has a fighting style. Jason barely has a fighting style, because he’s gotten so good at finding other people’s weaknesses and adapting to take advantage of their weak points that he simply flows, perfectly fluidly, into whatever will throw them the most.

For Dick, it’s taking advantage of his showmanship.

Every time Dick stops to twirl an eskrima stick, Jason punishes him for it. Every time Dick does a back flip rather than just hopping backwards, Jason makes him pay.

Jason is, bar none, the best sparring partner to have, because you’re never training to fight someone who fights like him. Instead, you’re training to recognize your own flaws as he ruthlessly exploits them.

They don’t get noticed immediately, but eventually Dick does, turning his head mid-swing. Jason takes advantage of the distraction, knocking the eskrima stick to the side before stepping into Dick’s personal bubble and kneeing him in the gut.

Dick drops to his knee with a grunt, and Jason  _almost_  goes for the kick to the face, stopping himself at the last second.

 _That’s progress_ , Bruce thinks to himself.  _At least he stopped_.

“Hold on,” Jason says when he glances towards the door. “You let him out?  _Already_? He almost broke my nose!” He gestures to the bandage across his nose, the bruising already visible.

Hafid looks upset, and Bruce is pretty sure it’s because of the world  _almost_.

“He promised he wouldn’t attack anyone,” Bruce says.

“And you believed him?” Jason asks. Bruce can’t blame him. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t believe it either.

“My word means something,” Hafid says. “Unlike yours.”

“Smart mouth for a halfpint,” Jason says, and Bruce sighs. He should have known they’d fight. It should have been obvious.

“I thought introductions would make sense,” Bruce says, trying to stop the argument before it starts.

“Father,” Hafid says, puffing up his chest. “Tell me which one is your son. Then I will prove to you who your  _real_  heir should be.”

Physically, Bruce thinks Jason is the one who looks the most like him. Similar build, similar face. But any of the three could pass as Bruce’s son physically, so he understands why Hafid isn’t sure.

“Both,” Bruce says, and Hafid scowls. He looks annoyed, and Bruce is increasingly aware of how much of Hafid’s sense of self is tied into the idea of being the  _son of the bat_.

The  _only_  son of the bat.

“How many sons do you have?” Hafid says. “How many am I going to have to fight?”

“I have three,” Bruce says. “And none of them.”

Hafid looks  _infuriated_  by the fact that there’s not just another one, but  _three_.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll fight all three. I will prove to you who the best choice is.”

“Hafid-”

“Oh no,” Jason says. “Come on. Let him try.”

“Jason,” Dick says, “he’s had a lot of training-”

“ _He_ ,” Jason says, “is a hot headed kid who thinks he can fight his way to the top of the pile. The fastest way to dissuade him of that notion is to knock him down.”

“Jason,” Bruce says. “You’re not fighting him.”

“Are you worried I’m going to lose?” Jason asks, raising his eyebrows. “What a vote of confidence.”

Bruce isn’t worried about that. Not  _really_. But he is worried that Jason’s underestimating his opponent, and knows that anyone trained by the league is going to exploit that.

“You will allow us to fight,” Hafid says.

“No,” Bruce says.

“Oh come on,” Slade says from behind him. “Let them fight. It’ll be good for them.”

Bruce  _really_  wishes Slade was still down in the cave.

“No,” Bruce says. “It’s a bad idea. Even ignoring the potential injuries-”

“Do you think I am not capable of holding back?” Hafid says, sounding more furious by the second. “Do you think I am not capable of sparring without killing my opponent?”

Bruce wants to say  _yes_ , but knows he’ll only enrage him.

“They’re going to fight anyway,” Slade says, throwing his arm around Bruce’s shoulders. “Might as well let them fight under supervision. Get the urge out.”

Bruce is absolutely of the opinion that it  _does not work like that_ , but he’s also very aware that what little control he has over Hafid is largely based on what Ra’s has told him. The fact that he continues to violently oscillate between demanding Bruce’s respect and declaring him useless isn’t lost on Bruce either.

“Fine,” he says. “But I want no injuries. If you can’t control yourself enough to fight without brutalizing your opponent, you aren’t going to be fighting at all.”

Bruce is facing Hafid as he says it, but he knows Jason’s listening. He doesn’t think Jason would really  _hurt_  him, but he does think he’d give him a hell of a black eye as payback for his nose.

Slade looks pleased, and drops his arm as he turns his attention to Jason.

“No weapons,” Jason says. “No armor. If you can’t fight without them, you’ll never survive in Gotham.”

“ _Please_ ,” Hafid says, moving to stand opposite from Jason as Dick pulls away. “Do you think I am incapable of handling myself?”

“That’s the idea,” Jason says.

“You are trying to rile me up,” Hafid says. “To make me agitated, so that I’ll make mistakes.”

“That’s the idea,” Jason says again, shooting him a nasty grin.

Slade mimes wiping a tear away.

“Real chip off the old block,” he says, and Bruce rolls his eyes.

“You shouldn’t be here right now,” Bruce says quietly. “You kidnapped him, in case you forgot.”

Slade drops his own voice as Jason infuriates Hafid by going through a prolonged series of warm up stretches.

“He can deal,” Slade says. “I have a feeling he’s not as angry at me as you might think.”

Bruce doesn’t get a chance to ask Slade what he means because Jason announces that he’s ready to start, his entirely pointless stretches finished.


	7. Chapter 7

“Alright,” Jason says. “Show me what you’ve got, since you think you’re big shit.”

Bruce is not looking forward to it. He’s still against the idea. Dick doesn’t look all too pleased either, although Bruce suspects it’s for very different reasons.

Slade looks  _excited_. He looks like a kid at Christmas.

“This’ll be great,” he mutters under his breath as Jason and Hafid both shift into fighting stances. Hafid’s is more structured, while Jason’s is more loose, and Bruce feels like someone’s stuck a taser into his spine. Is he really going to watch this? Someone’s going to get hurt. He doesn’t even know  _who_ , but he knows he’s not going to like it.

He suspects Jason’s underestimating someone with league training. That, even with Jason’s size and strength, Hafid’s going to give him a run for his money. He also suspects that either one of them would happily take any excuse to  _accidentally_  ding the other one. Especially Hafid.

Bruce turns out to be wrong on absolutely every level.

Dick whistles to signal the start of the fight, and both Jason and Hafid shoot forward. They’re both fast--Hafid’s probably a smidge faster--and they collide with a level of viciousness that takes Bruce aback.

And then it’s over, just like that.

One minute Hafid’s trying to punch Jason in the throat, and the next Jason takes full advantage of the size difference. He catches Hafid’s swing, twisting his arm around, and uses his weight against Hafid, literally throwing himself onto him as he twists Hafid’s arm.

Hafid hits the padded floor  _hard_ , with Jason on top of him, twisting his arm back.

“Don’t make me break it,” Jason says. “You already lost.”

Hafid doesn’t go down easy. He fights tooth and nail, grabbing at anything he can reach. But Jason’s ready for him, and there’s nothing in range for him to grab at. It’s a completely futile effort, and everyone knows it.

Just to salt the wound, Slade says  _that was just sad_  at a volume that is clearly intended for Hafid to hear.

Dick elbows Slade in the side.

“Give in,” Jason says. “Part of being a good fighter means knowing when you’ve lost.”

Bruce steps forward, and Slade grabs his arm.

“Bruce,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “Don’t.”

“He’s a  _child_ ,” Bruce says.

“He’s not a normal kid,” Slade says. “And you can’t treat him like one. He’s not a twelve year old child. He’s a twelve year old  _assassin_. He’s been trained his entire life to kill people like it’s his  _job_ , and you have to accept that.”

Bruce doesn’t get a chance to argue.

“I agree,” Dick says quietly. “I don’t want to, but I do. Establishing that Jason can and will beat him in a fight might get him in line long enough to listen to reason.”

Bruce doesn’t want to agree. He doesn’t. But with Slade  _and_  Dick looking at him like they are, he lets it happen.

“Yield,” Jason says again, twisting Hafid’s arm harder. “Don’t think for a minute I won’t hurt you.”

Everyone watching knows it’s true. Bruce doesn’t doubt for a moment that Jason will. But the question is if  _Hafid_  will recognize it as the truth.

Bruce holds his breath as Jason twists the harm that much harder. It’ll dislocate in a moment, if it hasn’t already. It’s only-

“I yield,” Hafid says, his voice pained, and Jason releases him immediately.

Hafid looks miserable on the floor, and while Bruce doubts it’s the first time he’s lost, he also suspects it’s the first time he’s lost to someone he thought was his inferior.

Bruce steps forward, offering a hand up, but Hafid ignores it, helping himself up instead. There’re the first signs of bruising on his wrist, and Bruce is sure there’s matching ones on his shoulder where Jason’s hand rested.

“Is he the one, Father?” Hafid asks, staring up at him. “Is he the new Batman?”

“He’s the new Batman,” Bruce confirms. “But he’s hardly the only one who could stop you.”

He gestures to Dick. There’s no point in gesturing to Slade, because it’s obvious that Slade’s already beat him once.

Hafid squints up at Bruce.

“He will do,” Hafid says. “I will take my place as his Robin until my training is complete and I am able to defeat him in single combat.”

“What?” Jason asks. “Hold on, no.”

Slade cracks up on the sidelines, and Hafid turns, glaring at him before turning back to Bruce.

“Why must he be here, father?” Hafid says, making his distaste known. “Consorting with him is beneath you.”

“Hafid-”

“Damian.”

Bruce blinks, caught off guard.

“...Damian,” he corrects. “Slade is a friend of the family. While I understand he can be difficult to deal with, you’ll need to learn to get along with a large variety of people if you intend to make a name for yourself.”

Stepping into the cowl is his most obvious goal, and for lack of something better, Bruce is forced to use it as a motivator.

“He’s disreputable,” Damian says with a scowl.

“I prefer infamous,” Slade says. He looks to be in damn good spirits, despite the fact that Bruce feels like his head is going to crack in half.

“Rewind,” Jason says, inserting himself back into the conversation despite the fact that Damian was ignoring him very pointedly. “You’re not becoming Robin.”

Damian spins, glaring up at Jason.

“It is my proper place,” he says.

“Tim’s Robin,” Jason says. “The position's full.”

“I will have to meet this Tim,” Damian says, “beat him, and then take his place.”

“No,” Jason says.

“Yes,” Damian says.

“Please,” Bruce says. “We can talk about this later. You aren’t going anywhere tonight.”

Or any time soon.

Damian  _hmmms_.

“Acceptable,” he says. “I will have to learn the layout of the manor before I can begin to operate in the city. It is important to have a secure base of operations.”

“Are you sure he’s related to you?” Slade asks. “I think he might be one of mine.”

Jason smacks Slade in the shoulder.

“Don’t joke,” Jason says.

“I joke where I please,” Slade says. “And I know he’s not one of mine. I wouldn’t have gone within fifty feet of an al Ghul.”

Damian looks like he’s trying to set Slade on fire with his mind.

“So,” Dick says, obviously attempting to ease the tension. “Damian?”

“I gave my name to  _father_ ,” Damian says. “Not you.”

“We all heard it,” Jason says. “So it’s out there. It’s too late to take it back. I’ll paint it on the wall if I want,  _Damian al Ghul_.”

“Damian  _Wayne_ ,” Damian snaps.

“Wayne?” Dick asks. “Wait, officially?” He sounds, just for a moment, almost  _bothered_.

“That is my name,” Damian says. “My father was Bruce Wayne, and my given name is Damian, so that makes me Damian Wayne.”

He seems particularly defensive on the point, and Bruce has a number of guesses as to why. Most of them start and end with  _unfortunate response to Talia’s idea of parenting_.

He doesn’t have much ground to stand on when it comes to parenting, but at the very least he didn’t hide their  _existence_  from anyone.

He’s not sure he’s going to get over that any time soon.

Damian’s presence brings a massive number of complications. Legally, Bruce is sure he doesn’t even exist. He won’t have a birth certificate or any ID. As far as the law is concerned, he’ll have popped out of thin air.

“You need to eat,” Bruce says. One step at a time. He needs to simply work through things as they come up, because if he tries to handle every complication that pops up at once, he’s going to give himself a brain aneurysm. “And then we need to get you a room.”

He needs to talk to... well, everyone. He needs to sit people down and  _talk_ , because Damian is not a wrench so much as he is an entire car being thrown into the works.

The only mercy is that Damian has kept to his word.

“Let’s go,” he says, gesturing to the door. “Food. Bed. It’s late.”

“And we need to hit the streets,” Jason says. “So have fun with this.”

Damian glares daggers at Slade and Jason as the two leave, heading towards the cave, and Bruce takes the moment to glance to Dick.

“Are you sticking around?”

“Can if you want me to,” he says. “I was going to head back to Bludhaven.”

“Just for a bit,” Bruce says. “I won’t keep you too long.”

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll check the room while you get the food then.”

Bruce nods to Dick, who Damian has started glaring at, and then puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, steering him back towards the kitchen.


	8. Chapter 8

To Damian’s obvious annoyance, Alfred has made a perfectly serviceable Persian stew when they get to the kitchen. He eats it without protest, but there’s no thank you forthcoming when the meal is over.

Bruce makes a note of that for later.

Damian doesn’t even protest when Bruce leads him to a bedroom, clean and largely empty. He’ll have to decorate it later. No matter what he tells himself, Bruce can’t stop himself from thinking in the long term. He’s going to need clothes. He’s going to need... what, school supplies? Is he actually going to send him to school? He’s struggling to picture Damian functioning in any sort of actual  _school_ , but that’s just one more thing to work on.

He doesn’t want to think about the kind of education he had with the league, but more than that he doesn’t want to think about how he’d do with someone else his own age, let alone a  _class_  of them.

“Will you promise to go to sleep?” Bruce asks. He doesn’t want an escape attempt.

“Of course, father,” Damian says, the picture of obedience. “Sleep is important.”

Bruce is skeptical, but he nods just the same. He doesn’t have a choice.

And, of course, the glass in the room is shatterproof. Damian couldn’t get out through the window if he wanted.

Bruce sags against the door when he finally closes the door behind him. He’s  _exhausted_ , and it’s only just past midnight.

He’s expecting to find Slade having lingered just to lecture him on something or other, but he’s gone when Bruce checks. He checks in with Alfred, quickly working through the most urgent needs--clothes, toiletries, more food--and then goes to find Dick.

He finds his oldest in his bedroom, digging through his desk looking for something.

“Dick?” He asks, and Dick’s head swings up. He looks... normal. Unaffected by everything that’s happened. Bruce is a master of keeping his cool, but he’s straining to do so right then.

“You wanted to talk?” Dick asks.

“More... I wanted to check in. It’s been a difficult day.”

More like few hours. Damian hasn’t even been in the house six hours.

“It’s been a difficult day for  _you_ ,” Dick points out. “I’m guessing Talia didn’t mention this?”

“No,” Bruce says. “She didn’t.”

He’s silent for a moment, and then he sighs.

“I... feel like I’m making mistakes with him already. It was easier with you, because at least back then I wasn’t aware of the mistakes I was making. Ignorance is bliss.”

“It was easier with me,” Dick says as he leans against his desk, “because I wasn’t a child soldier. You realize that’s what he is, right?”

Bruce doesn’t want to think about it, but it’s an undeniable truth.

“The league...” Bruce cuts himself off. He  _really_  doesn’t want to think about it. Not right then. That’s a thing for tomorrow.

Dick walks over, reaching up to rest a hand on Bruce’s shoulder.

“You okay?” He asks, the picture of concern.

“Fine,” Bruce says. “Are you?”

Dick’s eyebrows go up.

“Me?” Dick asks. “Why would I not be fine? It’s not  _my_  kid that showed up in a duffel bag.”

Bruce grunts.

“I’m going to have to talk to Slade about that.”

“No kidding.”

Bruce gets the distinct feeling he just got redirected, and does what he can to drag things back to the topic he’s  _trying_  to address.

“Just because he isn’t your son,” Bruce says, “doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect you.”

“Doesn’t affect me any more than Jason did when he showed up. Or Tim. I’ll adjust. Just a new little brother to ruffle the hair of.”

Bruce’s lips press together into a thin line. No. Something about it is bothering him, and he rakes through his memories, trying to put his finger on just what it is.

“You were bothered,” Bruce says after a moment. “By his name.”

Dick frowns, matching Bruce’s expression.

“It’s nothing.”

“If it bothered you,” Bruce says, “it isn’t nothing.”

“Just... thinking about names.”

Bruce tries to twist things around in his head. To put himself in Dick’s position. Names. What bothers him about the name? Damian is a perfectly ordinary name. There’s nothing particularly distinct about it.

The last name.

And then it realizes.

“Because he’s Damian Wayne,” Bruce says, “and you’re not Dick Wayne.”

Dick turns his head away, his eyes not meeting Bruce’s own.

“Yeah,” he says after a long pause. “It occurred to me.”

Bruce feels like he’s made another mistake, only it was one he made more than a decade ago.

“When I took you in,” Bruce says quietly, “I didn’t want to replace your parents. Their memory was still.. very fresh for you. I didn’t want to do anything that would make you think I was trying to make you forget them, so you stayed a Grayson. They were good people.”

Dick’s eyes flick back to his.

“It’s not because people are less likely to connect us?”

“What?” Bruce asks, taken aback by the insinuation. “No. Of course not.” How could Dick even think that? He’s horrified, and he doesn’t try and hide it.

“Wait no,” Dick says, sounding almost desperate. “Not like that. I thought it was a... a secrecy thing. So that people wouldn’t automatically connect us together. Secret identity stuff.”

“No,” Bruce says, confused. Was  _that_  what Dick thought? “I made that decision long before you ever found the cave.”

“Oh,” Dick says, and Bruce realizes his cheeks are going pink. He’s  _embarrassed_.

“Dick,” Bruce says. “I realize I’m not exactly the most... approachable person. But if something like that is bothering you, you can talk to me about it.”

Dick does not look convinced, but nods after a bit.

“I’ll... if something comes up, I’ll call. But only if you do me a favor.”

Bruce knows he’s not going to like it.

“Talk to him,” Dick says. “Like, not tonight, but tomorrow. Right now you’re in panic mode and you’re trying to fix things, but you need to sit down and  _talk_  to him. Like... what was he doing the last few years? Because Talia’s been, by my count, dead for four years. And Ra’s, if Slade’s information is accurate, has been a half-dead zombie for that whole time. So who’s been raising the kid in the meanwhile?”

Bruce feels sick. He hadn’t thought about the timeline. The whole time he’d been picturing Ra’s and Talia and Damian as the world's most dysfunctional family, but for the last four years there hasn’t even been  _that_.

“...I didn’t think about that,” Bruce says quietly.

“No,” Dick says, “you didn’t. But that’s okay. It’s day one. You’ll do just fine, alright? Just don’t shut down emotionally like you always do.”

Bruce scowls, and Dick pats him on the shoulder.

“Do you think...” Bruce starts, stopping himself with a frown before he works up the nerve to finish his sentence. “Do you think Jason and Tim are thinking the same thing?”

“The same thing?”

“About the Wayne name.”

“Well, Jason has,” Dick says, and Bruce shoots him a look.

“Are you guessing, or-”

“We talked about it once,” Dick says. “He’s not exactly a big fan of his bio parents, you know.”

Bruce wants to lie down and die.

“You talked about it?” Bruce asks, his voice strained. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that this was a... a  _thing_.”

Dick gives him a  _look_ , and Bruce groans.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “I’ll talk to him. I need to... to make that clear.”

“Okay, I’ll ask,” Dick says. “You left me a Grayson because my parents were good people, but his were scumbags. So why isn’t he Jason Wayne?”

“Because I didn’t want to show favoritism,” Bruce says. “You don’t think you’d have been bothered if I gave him my last name and not you?”

“One,” Dick says, “You could have asked rather than guessing. And two, no, not if you’d explained things. Tim and I care about our parents. Jason doesn’t.”

Bruce realizes he’s walked himself into the exact situation he wanted to avoid: one son with  _Wayne_ , the other three without. He groans.

Dick pats him on the shoulder again.

“Hey,” he says. “Remember what I said, alright? Talk to him. First thing. Get some breakfast into him and try and talk to him.”

“He wasn’t very interested in talking,” Bruce says. “He was mostly interested in yelling.”

“And he calmed down since then,” Dick points out. “So give it a try.”

Bruce sighs, and then nods. He’ll try. He’s not convinced it’s going to work, but he’ll try.

“Alright,” Dick says. “I have a patrol to join, so I’m going to take off.”

Dick’s already on the way to the door when Bruce clears his throat, and Dick glances over his shoulder, raising his eyebrows.

“Dick,” Bruce says. “I know it’s late. But if you want to... I wouldn’t-”

No, that’s wrong, and he stops himself before he can shove his foot into his mouth.

“I’d be honored if you took the Wayne name. But it’s your decision.”

Dick stares at him for a long moment, his expression hard to read, and then he nods.

“I’ll think about it. Take care, alright?”

Bruce doesn’t  _quite_  let him leave. He pulls Dick into a hug before he goes, unwilling to say anything, burning with guilt.


	9. Chapter 9

Bruce can’t sleep. He goes to bed, and then he lies under his sheets staring up at the ceiling. The guilt is eating at him, and by the time the clock beside him reads four AM he gives up on sleep entirely, pushing himself out of the bed.

He feels like an idiot.

Bruce changes into workout clothes and heads down into the cave, working out some of his nerves on a punching bag. He only plans for it to last a few minutes, but he’s soaked in sweat and trembling slightly when he hears the sound of the batmobile returning.

“Well,” Slade says as he boosts himself out of the car. “You look like a piece of shit. What burned down while we were gone?” His helmet's already off, and he strips out of the Gotham Knight armor with a practiced ease.

Jason’s a bit slower about it, but he has a lot less experience.

“Freaking out over the new kid,” Jason says. “That’s my guess. Or did he sneak out?”

“If he snuck out,” Bruce says as he grabs a bottle of water, sinking into the chair at the bat computer, “I’d have called.”

“So?” Jason asks. “What then?”

“I just -” Bruce stops himself, making himself breath. Definitely worked out too hard. Definitely pushed himself too far. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“It’s like six AM,” Jason says. “Is this not a thing that can wait until after I’ve slept?”

Bruce almost says  _no, it can’t wait_ , only it absolutely can. The only reason it can’t is because he’s not going to sleep until he’s talked to all three of the boys.

All four, he corrects himself.

“Take mercy on him,” Slade says. “You go hit the showers, soak a bit, and I’ll make sure Bruce isn’t going to drop dead from guilt. We’ll swap off when we’re done.”

“Fine,” Jason says. “Try not to take too long. If I shrivel up like a prune in the water, that’s on you.”

Bruce sinks his head down into his hands as Jason leaves, and Slade leans against the desk, looking down at him.

“So,” he says. “You’ve got a bonus kid you didn’t know about.”

“The more I think about it,” Bruce says, “the worse it gets.”

“It’s the Pandora's box of bad implications, isn’t it?”

“Which you made worse,” Bruce says with a scowl. “You could have handled things a lot better than you did.” Like not keeping him in a  _duffel bag_  for one.

“Could have,” Slade agrees, “but I didn’t. I was on a schedule, and I didn’t have the weeks it would take to get the kid to open up to me. Way easier to drop him here and let it be a community effort.”

“You still could have handled it better,” Bruce says. It’s hypocritical, but he feels like he has to say it anyway. So much of what happened could have been avoided if Damian had shown up on his doorstep instead.

“Sure,” Slade says. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next time I find your long lost son for you.”

Bruce grumbles, sagging back in the chair until he’s staring at the ceiling.

“...I appreciate it,” he finally says.

“What’s that?” Slade asks. “Was that an elusive  _Bruce Wayne Thank You_?”

Bruce doesn’t have the energy to glare at him.

“I mean it,” he says. “You could have very easily... not. Dumped him at an orphanage. Left him there. Are you going to tell me what you were  _really_  doing there though?”

Slade’s story is compelling, but it’s also missing a very important element: the  _why_. From what he’s said, he followed up a lead for literally no reason, discovered where Ra’s was, and then butchered his way through the league.

“Will you believe I did it to help Gotham?”

“No.”

“Well, good, that means you haven’t gone senile,” Slade says. “No, I heard a rumor.”

“A rumor?”

“I crossed paths with part of the league,” Slade says. “The part that broke off when they decided that Ra’s wasn’t worth following. Their leader pulled me aside and said they’d heard I’d been working with Batman.”

Ra’s side doesn’t seem to have had much information on  _anything_ , but it’s obvious that the other faction did if they knew that much.

“And they told you about Damian.”

“Didn’t say his name, but yeah. Said Talia had a son. They weren’t sure what happened to him. Offered me a lot of cash to make sure Ra’s stayed down, and part of the terms were that I leave him alive.”

“They were going to take him for themselves,” Bruce says, the realization sinking in.

“Most likely. Or wanted to kill him themselves. But the contract didn’t specify I had to leave him there, just  _alive_ , so I was perfectly within my rights to take him.”

“And Ra’s?” Bruce asks. “He doesn’t stay dead, you know.”

“He’ll stay dead this time,” Slade says. “His head’s sealed in storage, and they’ll have a hard time bringing him back without it.”

Bruce gives Slade a horrified look.

“ _Please_  tell me you didn’t let Damian see that.”

“No,” Slade says, “he was unconscious when I did that. He didn’t see anything he wouldn’t have seen during his time at the league.”

Bruce reaches up, rubbing at his face as he makes himself breathe. Ra’s is gone. That’s one thing he can check off. But Slade...

“Thank you,” Bruce says. “Even more now.”

“Mmm,” Slade says, “you’ll make it up to me.”

Bruce isn’t sure he wants to know how.

“Slade,” Bruce says. “Has Jason ever... talked to you about his name?”

“His  _name_?” Slade asks, twisting his head around to squint at Bruce. “Why?”

Bruce grunts. He doesn’t want to say  _no reason_  because there’s a definite  _reason_ , but he doesn’t want to talk about it either. 

“I’ll have to talk to him,” Bruce says. “I just wanted to know if you’d heard anything.”

“Talk to him then,” Slade says. “Probably can’t hurt. I’ll send him back in.”

He gives Bruce a lazy wave over his shoulder, heading over to the showers and leaving Bruce alone.


	10. Chapter 10

Jason does  _not_  immediately emerge from the showers, which Bruce doesn’t think is a good sign. He’s pretty sure it means that Slade and Jason are talking, and he feels like that won’t mean anything good.

It takes almost twenty minutes for Jason to emerge from the showers, fully dressed and distinctly unimpressed.

“Jason,” Bruce says.

“Bruce.”

Bruce wonders to himself if  _that_  is another sign of his awful parenting. Aren’t they supposed to be calling him dad? Shouldn’t that be a thing?

He puts it aside for another day.

“I wanted to talk to you. Check in on... how you’re doing.”

“It wasn’t  _my_  kid that showed up on the kitchen table.”

“No,” Bruce says. He’s feeling ever so slightly more prepared, but only from experience. He’s already talked to Dick about it. He has, at the very least, an  _idea_  of what’s coming. He’s not so caught off guard.

“No,” Bruce says again, “but it is a... a big change to the dynamic.”

“Because you’ve got a  _real son_  now?”

His words are dripping with so much venom that Bruce feels like he’s been slapped in the face.

“Jason,” Bruce says, his voice strained. He knows why he’s lashing out. He just has to fix it. “I already have three real sons. I meant because he’s a  _child_. He’s more than a decade younger than you, and he’s going to have a huge adjustment ahead of him.”

It’s obvious what Jason thinks, and Bruce pushes himself to his feet, reaching out to touch his shoulder.

Jason shrugs him off. It stings, even though he should have expected it.

“Jason,” Bruce says. “You are my son. Period. No matter what happens with Damian.”

Jason doesn’t meet his eyes, but some of the tension in his shoulders seems to ease.

“I talked to Dick,” Bruce says. “He mentioned something that I... hadn’t realized.”

“Oh boy,” Jason says, leaning back as he folds his arms over his chest. “Alright, I’m ready. I’ve braced myself. What revelation have you had?”

Bruce winces. Dick was happy when he reached out. Jason is... not.

“I realized Dick was upset when he heard that Damian was taking my last name,” he says. “And after we talked I realize it probably bothered you too.”

“Dickhead,” Jason mutters under his breath, looking like he’s plotting a murder.

“Jason,” Bruce says. “I know I wasn’t clear about it, and that I should have talked to you about it. But I didn’t mean anything cruel by it. I left Dick’s name as it was because I wanted to respect his parents, and I only left yours the way it was because I didn’t want you two to feel at odds.”

For all the good that did. Dick and Jason had an  _infinitely_  better relationship in the weeks surrounding Jason’s return than they'd ever had before his abduction.

“Uhuh,” Jason says. “And?”

“And,” Bruce says, trying to steel his nerve. “While I can’t--and won’t--force you to do anything about it, if you wanted to take the Wayne name, I’d be honored.”

Jason’s face twists. He’s angry. Frustrated. There’s a hint of something else, but it’s gone too fast for Bruce to really register it.

“You’re right,” Jason says. “I should change my name.”

Bruce already knows what Jason’s going to say, but it feels like a kick in the gut when he hears it anyway.

“Jason Wilson’s got a good ring to it, right?”

Jason turns to leave, patting Bruce on the shoulder as he goes.

Bruce waits for Jason to be gone before he buries his head in his hands. He shouldn’t be upset. He has no right to be upset. Of  _course_  it would be Jason Wilson, because Slade’s been more of a father than Bruce ever was to Jason. Even if he’s trying now, that doesn’t erase all the mistakes he made before. It doesn’t erase the bitterness. Slade deserves it. He doesn’t.

But it still hurts. He suspects it was supposed to.

Bruce lingers in the cave a while longer before he finally calls Tim. He gets an answering machine, so he simply leaves a message, asking Tim to call him, while making it clear it isn’t an emergency. He knows what he’ll think otherwise.

Bruce doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep, so he heads to the library, flipping through old references just for something to do.

 _Damian_ , the reference says,  _from ‘to tame’._

Bruce tucks it away and goes to find an arabic dictionary.

 _Hafid_ , the reference says,  _‘protector’._

He flips again.

 _Hafid_ , the reference says. It’s spelt differently, but it’s the same word. _‘Grandson’_.

Bruce tucks the books away and tries to go to bed. Even as the hours tick away, he can’t sleep. He lets his body rest anyway, staring at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts.


	11. Chapter 11

Bruce brings Damian breakfast on a tray. Alfred’s already up and about, tutting disapprovingly at Bruce’s obvious lack of sleep, and when Bruce decides Damian’s probably slept enough, Alfred’s already there, setting a tray into his hands and telling him to just  _go talk to the boy_.

Bruce is not prepared. His talk with Dick went alright, but his talk with Jason is the stuff of nightmares. And Bruce knows exactly which of the two Damian takes after.

He knocks at the door, but there’s no response, and after a bit of hesitation he opens the door.

Damian’s awake, doing push-ups on the floor, and even though Alfred’s on the far side of the house, Bruce can practically  _hear_  him saying  _well, like father like son_. Bruce has woken himself up the same way plenty of times. It’s good for wakefulness. He’s not sure he could manage it right then though.

“Damian?” He calls. “I brought you breakfast.”

Damian eyes him warily, finishing his set before he pushes himself to his feet. He’s fit, Bruce will give him that.

“Father,” Damian says, “do you not have servants to deliver food for you?”

“No,” Bruce says, setting the tray down on the nightstand. “We don’t have servants here.” He already knows where the conversation is going, and does what he can to cut it off at the source. “Alfred is our butler, but he’s not a servant. He’s part of the family.”

Damian looks unimpressed.

“Your family is unnecessarily large,” Damian says. “How many  _are_  there?”

Bruce isn’t sure he has enough fingers.

“Dick, Jason, and Tim are your brothers,” Bruce says. “Alfred, who you’ve already met, runs the house. He’s like a father to me-”

“And your parents?”

Damian barely seems to know anything about him. What he  _does_ know seems to be limited to his activities behind the cowl, and he suspects that’s more Ra’s’ influence than Talia's.

“They died,” Bruce says, “a long time ago.”

Damian tuts, clearly unimpressed.

“And Deathstroke?”

“Slade,” Bruce says. “His name is Slade. Or... Mr. Wilson.”

Damian makes a face.

“And Deathstroke?”

Bruce decides not to push that right then. Damian has every reason to be upset at Slade. He doesn’t know him very well, and his only real introduction was Deathstroke murdering his way through the people who’d been raising him.

Or had maybe been raising him. Things seem far more murky than Bruce originally thought.

“Slade is a friend,” Bruce says. He wonders how many times he’s going to have to say it before it sticks. “He’s Jason’s...” Bruce feels the knife twist. “He’s Jason’s father.”

Damian squints at him.

“His father?”

“Yes.”

“You’re his father.”

Bruce feels like he’s going to vomit.

“Slade has... done a lot for him. He’s an important part of Jason’s life. So he has a room here, and he lives here when he’s in Gotham.” Jason’s new apartment is too small for the two of them, and once upon a time Bruce had hopes that Slade’s return to Gotham would mean Jason moving back into the manor.

“I don’t understand,” Damian says, still squinting. “Which of you is his  _real_  father?”

Damian isn’t doing it intentionally--he doesn’t know enough about the situation for it to be that--but it still hurts, and Bruce makes himself take a deep breath.

“We both are,” Bruce says, “I’d like to think.”

“You cannot have  _two fathers_ ,” Damian protests. “Which of you is his  _biological_  father?”

“Neither,” Bruce says. “His birth father isn’t in his life.” Damian doesn’t need to know about Willis Todd. That’s not for him to share.

Damian looks surprised, his mouth a little  _o_. And then his face lights up.

“Ah, I understand now,” Damian says. “You adopted him. Are the others adopted?”

Bruce has a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Yes,” Bruce says. “They’re adopted.”

“I understand, Father,” Damian says with an enthusiastic nod of his head. “Perhaps I will not have to fight the others for the cowl at all. When my training is complete, they’ll no doubt step aside for your true son.”

Oh no.

Bruce isn’t letting it happen.

“Damian,” Bruce says, his tone harsh. “They  _are_  my sons. My true sons.”

“I am your  _blood_ ,” Damian insists.

“And  _they_  are my sons,” Bruce says. He shouldn’t get angry. It makes perfect sense that Damian would think that way, that Ra’s would think of  _blood_  as the most important factor. But he’s a bit angry anyway, and just doing all he can not to direct it at Damian.

“I understand that Ra’s would have told you otherwise,” Bruce says, “but they are my sons. Period. They are not lesser parts of the family because they don’t share my blood.”

“They are not-”

“No,” Bruce says. “This is not something you can argue. They are my sons. They are your brothers. You need to treat them the exact same way you’d treat them if they were my blood, or this is going to be an issue.”

Damian scowls. He doesn’t seem  _upset_ , just  _annoyed_. Like a child convinced the person speaking to them is wrong, but unwilling to argue over the point.

“Fine,” Damian says. “I will beat them each in single combat and prove I am the superior son.”

Bruce sighs and buries his face in his hands. At least that’s better than  _they’re not your real sons_. 

“Father,” Damian says, “when is Tim arriving? He must be first before I can-”

“No,” Bruce says. He picks up the tray of food, sliding it into Damian’s hands. “Eat.”

Damian does eat, entirely without protest, which strikes Bruce as odd.

“Tim-”

“You can’t take the position as Robin by beating Tim in a fight,” Bruce says. “That isn’t how it works. Mantles are  _passed_. The person wearing the mantle chooses their successor. It isn’t winner take all.”

Damian stops to think about things, obviously turning over his options in his head.

“And,” Bruce adds, “Robin isn’t Batman’s partner anymore.”

“What?” Damian says outraged. “That is the point of a Robin!”

“Tim kept the mantle,” Bruce says. “He stayed Robin, because that was what he wanted. But he works on his own now.” Or almost on his own. Close enough, anyway. “Batman and Robin work together, but they’re not partners.”

Damian grumbles to himself.

“Fine,” he says. “If I cannot be Robin, then I will settle for being Batman’s new partner.”

It’s like a never ending cascade of mistaken assumptions.

“Batman already has a partner. Slade operates as the Gotham Knight, who works with him. And Jason doesn’t want a new teenage sidekick. He has very strong opinions about the matter. So you can’t assume he’s going to just take you on. He’ll probably say no.”

“He can’t say no!” Damian protests. “Every member of the family is involved! It can’t just be me and the butler!”

Bruce does not point out that Alfred’s manned the computer on multiple occasions.

“You’re still young,” Bruce says. “The boys were all older when they took up a masked identity. You need to relax and take things slow, alright? You need to... to adjust to this. To life here, in Gotham.”

With him. With the boys. With a life that doesn’t require him to train to kill people.

“I wanted to ask you about that.”

“About what, Father?”

“About your life with the league.”

Bruce still remembers what Slade said before Jason and Damian fought. About Damian not being as angry as he was acting.

Damian suddenly seems very interested in what remains of the food on the tray.

“Damian,” Bruce says. “I know it’s probably not pleasant, but I need to know. I didn’t know anything about the state of the league since they left Gotham. Everything I know are the things I’ve heard from Slade.”

“The league is not what it was,” Damian says quietly. His voice is bitter and deeply unhappy. “Under grandfather it was a true force for good in the world. But since the destruction of Gotham’s pit, he has been...”

“Not himself,” Bruce finishes.

“Yes,” Damian says. “The league is not the league without him. But none of us had the power to return him to his old self.”

Even if Slade says Damian stayed with Ra’s loyalists, Bruce doubts that was a choice he made. No, that was a choice made  _for_  him.

“It was different,” Bruce says quietly. “After he died.”

Damian nods, but he doesn’t say any more.

Bruce reaches out, tentatively resting a hand on Damian’s shoulder. He expects to be brushed off, but Damian seems to tolerate it without protest.

“He didn’t know my name,” Damian says quietly.

Bruce has never liked Ra’s. Not since he found out the kind of person he  _really_  was. But the idea of him sinking so low and falling so far turns his stomach. The idea of Damian having to sit in a room with the reanimated corpse of his grandfather is a truly awful one.

“You were close?” Bruce asks, and Damian nods.

“I was his... his only grandchild,” Damian says. “He said I would rule the league one day. That I had to train and prepare for that.”

Damian isn’t crying, but he should be. His voice sounds broken, and Bruce wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in close. Damian won’t  _let_  himself cry, but Bruce acts like he is anyway.

“I’m sorry about what happened to him,” Bruce says quietly. “And to your mother.”

Damian shows even less physical affection than Jason, so the hug feels almost entirely one sided. He’s stony faced, and only his voice gives anything away.

“Did she truly not tell you?” Damian says quietly. “When she left... she said she was going to tell you. She said that one way or another, you’d return with her, and take your place as head of the league.”

Bruce wonders what her original plan was. For him to join Ra’s? For him to kill Ra’s? When was she planning on telling him?

Bruce runs through his memories of the night of Talia’s death. Was her hesitation not just out of concern for his wellbeing, but the knowledge that if he died, Damian would never meet his father?

There’re so many possibilities, and the more Bruce thinks about it, the less he feels he understands Talia.

“No,” Bruce says. “She didn’t get a chance.”

Talia’s words to him before her death run through his head.

 _I had to save you_. For herself? Or for Damian?

“I thought she would come back,” Damian says quietly. “Grandfather always did.”

Damian doesn’t know how things played out. He doesn’t know that Ra’s threatened to kill Talia. He doesn’t know that Talia planned to kill Ra’s. He doesn’t know the betrayal that played out on all sides. Even on his own.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. Damian doesn’t need to know. They’re gone. He doesn’t need to know that his grandfather almost killed his mother to  _force_  Bruce to take the position. “I know it isn’t what you’re used to. But I’m going to try and make things better for you here. Someone your age shouldn’t have to... shouldn’t have had to go through all that.”

Damian doesn’t say anything, and Bruce lets him go, pulling back. What else? What else is he supposed to say? He has to do it properly. He has to say the right thing.

“Damian,” Bruce says, “you need to know that you can talk to me. About anything. Even if you think I’ll be upset, or... mad.” Damian looks at him silently in response, and Bruce clears his throat.

“I mean it. You can talk to me about anything. No matter what.”

He expects Damian to take advantage of it, but he doesn’t. Instead he simply nods, silent as ever. He’s lost in his own head, and Bruce sighs, shoulders sagging.

He’s tired, but the day has only just started.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “Let's get ready for the day, alright? We need to get you onto... some kind of schedule.” He doesn’t even know where to start. With Jim? He needs to legalize him somehow. He doesn’t know  _how_ , but he’s going to have to.


	12. Chapter 12

Bruce is tired. He feels like he’s sleepwalking his way through the day. He leaves Damian--as reluctantly as one can--with Alfred in the kitchen. He steps into his office and calls his lawyer.

Explaining the situation is complex and requires a lot of talking around things, but after a little while the man gets the gist. Bruce has a son he didn’t know about. He was dropped in his lap. He has, as far as Bruce can tell, no legal identification or birth certificate. He probably doesn’t exist in the eyes of the government.

His lawyer promises to start the paperwork, and Bruce thanks him for his time.

Tim leaves a message on his answering machine, letting him know he’ll stop by around lunch, so Bruce calls Jim. He tries to do what he can to keep him in the loop, and this is no different.

“Gordon,” he says, and there’s a slurp of something. Probably coffee.

“It’s Bruce,” Bruce says. “You at your desk?”

“Is this a business call?” Jim asks, which means  _do I need to put in the private communicator?_

“No,” Bruce says, and he swears he can  _hear_ Jim relax on the other end.

“Yeah, I’m at my desk,” Jim says. “Busy night, easy morning. Lots of paperwork. What’s up?”

“Has Barbara talked to you yet?”

“Should she have?” Bruce knows Jim well enough to read him just off his voice. Probably sitting up a bit straighter in his office, debating on if he wants to close the shades.

“No,” Bruce says. “Probably leaving it for me to do. Slade got back last night.”

“Joy,” Jim says with sarcasm so thick you could cut it with a knife. “While I appreciate the heads up, if one of my boys pulls him over again for speeding-”

“That was one time,” Bruce says. “And I already spoke to him about it. He’s not going to do it again.”

“I’d hope not,” Jim says. “You were saying?”

“He brought someone back with him,” Bruce says. “A son I didn’t know existed.”

Jim doesn’t say anything at all for so long that Bruce isn’t sure if the phone’s disconnected.

“Jim?”

“Sorry, Bruce - did you say a  _son_?”

“He’s twelve,” Bruce says, realizing he never actually confirmed that. That’s something else to ask. “He’s at the house now. I’ve already spoken to my lawyer about the paperwork.”

“Do I want to know who the mother is?”

“No,” Bruce says, knowing it’s the truth.

Jim exhales sharply.

“Alright,” he says. “What should I expect?”

“Nothing, for the time being,” Bruce says. “He’ll be staying in the manor while he adjusts. I doubt you’ll see him unless you stop by for some reason. I just wanted to... give you a heads up.”

“Before I find out during Sunday dinner,” Jim says. “Because you know Barbara and Tim aren’t going to stop talking about it.”

“Probably not, no,” Bruce says. 

“Alright,” Jim says. “Thanks for the heads up. If you need anything, you know my number.”

He thanks Jim for his time and hangs up, tipping his chair back until he stares at the ceiling.

He just means to  _think_ , but suddenly he’s woken by a knock on the door.

“Bruce?”

Tim? It sounds like Tim, only Tim’s not home, and Bruce leans forward to check the phone.

He’s been asleep three hours.

Bruce makes a strangled noise and makes himself sit up straight, adjusting his shirt.

“Come in,” he calls, and Tim pops his head in the door, looking confused.

“Everything alright?” Tim asks as he closes the door behind him.

“Fine,” Bruce says.

“Alfred said you were talking to the lawyers.”

“And Jim,” Bruce says.

“That bad?”

Bruce reaches up and rubs at the bridge of his nose.

“No,” Bruce says, “not that bad. I fell asleep.”

Tim seems momentarily taken aback, and then flops down into the seat across from Bruce.

“That bad, huh,” he says. “Just the kid?”

“Damian,” Bruce says. “Apparently his name is Damian. And.... no.”

Bruce fights the urge to recline back in his seat. He’s still half-asleep, and if he leans back, he’s going to fall asleep mid conversation.

“Just - one minute, I need a drink.” He’s already starting to get up when Tim stops him.

“Water?” Tim asks, digging a hand into his bag and producing a sealed--and somehow cold--water bottle.

Bruce squints at it, but accepts it after a moment. He drains half the bottle in one go, feeling considerably more alive by the time he sets it down on his desk.

“Always prepared,” Bruce says.

“Someone has to be,” Tim replies.

Bruce settles back in his seat, and then changes his mind. He gets up anyway, looping around so that rather than sitting across the desk from Tim, he’s sitting in the other chair, just beside him. Tim’s eyebrows go up, looking confused.

“Did you talk to the others yet?” Bruce asks.

“No,” Tim says, his confusion obvious. “Alfred met me at the door and redirected me here. I think he wanted you around when I met the kid.”

That’s a definite no, because Tim clearly has no idea what he’s talking about.

“I talked with Dick and Jason last night,” Bruce says. “You aren’t living here anymore, but it’s still your home, and I wanted to... to make sure you’re doing alright with all this.”

Tim doesn’t stop being confused. If anything, he looks  _more_  confused.

“Uh,” he says. “Yeah? I’m fine. What’s this about?”

Bruce thinks the whole conversation would be a lot easier if Tim was reacting differently. He’s not sure how to deal with calm.

“I was hoping to talk to you about your... your last name.”

Realization dawns on Tim’s face.

“Oh! I mean, I figured Drake would come first, and then Jim's after, but Barb  _did_  say we should match-”

“No,” Bruce blurts out. What?  _That_? “No, not that.”

Tim’s back to confused.

“...What are we talking about exactly?”

“I was... made aware that I wasn’t clear about my intentions when I chose not to change your last names.”

“Oh!” Tim says, realization dawning right back. Bruce just hopes he actually understands it this time. “About the fact that we’re not Waynes?”

Bruce winces.

“Yes,” he says. “I didn’t change Dick’s name because I didn’t want him to think I was replacing his parents, and then I didn’t change yours or Jason’s because I didn’t want you to feel different.”

The reactions he’s getting are completely different from what he expected between his experiences with Dick and Jason. Tim’s cool as a cucumber.

“I kind of figured,” Tim says. “I mean, not in those exact words, but when Dick and Jason weren’t Waynes, I kind of figured I wasn’t going to be either.”

For the first time in a while, Bruce doesn’t feel like melting into the floor.

“You can if you want to,” Bruce says. “That’s part of why I wanted to have this conversation. To make it clear that... the option is open.”

“Really?” Tim asks, his eyebrows shooting up. “Like, no questions asked?”

“No questions asked.”

“I hope you’re ready for what you just unleashed,” Tim says, his tone grave.

“...What I just unleashed?” Bruce asks, uncertain.

“Barbara’s going to murder you when she finds out she has to change her name again. If I’m going with Wayne-Gordon, she’s going to have to swap to Gordon-Wayne,  _and_  she’s going to have to redo her business cards.”

Bruce stares at him for a moment before it dawns on him that it’s  _probably_  a joke.

“...You’re joking, right?” Bruce asks, uncertain.

Tim looks deadly serious.

“She’s going to run over your toes for at least a month,” Tim says.

Bruce  _still_ can’t tell how serious he’s being.

Tim’s face cracks into a smile, and he reaches out, patting Bruce’s knee.

“I’m kidding, Bruce,” he says. “She’ll be fine with it. You already talked to Dick and Jay...?”

Bruce pauses for a moment, and then nods.

“And?”

“Dick said he would... think about it.”

“And Jason?”

Bruce doesn’t want to say, but he makes himself.

“He said if he was going to change his name, he’d be a Wilson.”

Tim winces.

“Ouch,” he says. “I’ll talk to them. See what we want to do.”

Bruce sags back into his seat, the energy sucked out of him.

“You should meet Damian,” Bruce says. “But I should also warn you.”

“Warn me?” Tim asks, looking alarmed.

“Jason beat him in a fight, so now he’s decided he’s going to be Jason’s Robin.”

Tim’s eyebrows go up.

“We already told him  _you’re_  Robin,” Bruce says. “But the idea doesn’t seem to be sticking.”

“So I should be expecting a twelve year old to challenge me to a duel for the right to my costume?”

“Apparently,” Bruce says.

“I mean,” Tim says after a moment. “He can have it if he wants. I thought about changing my name for a while. Robin feels... young, sometimes. Hard to get out of the Batman shadow with it.”

Bruce considers for a moment, and then shakes his head.

“If you want to change your name, change it. But Damian doesn’t get to use it just because he went after it. He’s going to need to learn that dueling everyone isn’t the answer, and that he’s not always going to get what he wants.”

Bruce stands up, trying to make himself more presentable.

“And more importantly, he’s going to have to learn to find his  _own_  place in the family. One that doesn’t require him to push someone out and take their place.”

“Good lesson to learn,” Tim says, “considering that  _someone_  would probably be me.”


	13. Chapter 13

Someone starts yelling as Bruce and Tim head towards the kitchen. He’s  _pretty_  sure it’s Damian, and he’s proven right when he steps into the room to find more or less everyone gathered. Slade’s leaning up against a wall, observing the chaos, and Jason appears to be holding something just out of reach of Damian.

“Father!” Damian yells when Bruce appears in the doorway. “Do you have no control of your children?!”

Slade cracks up at the question, and Bruce lets out a small wheeze.

“Jason,” Bruce says, “please give back whatever it is you took.”

Whatever it is he took turns out to be a plum, which Jason dutifully drops into Damian’s hands. Damian doesn’t even eat it, just drops it into his pocket.

Bruce has no idea how Alfred’s done it, but Damian looks like he’s had a shower  _and_  he’s wearing actual street clothes rather than the league’s usual outfit. They even look like they fit.

When did he even have time...?

Damian only  _then_  notices Tim, marching straight up to him to stare up at his face, scrutinizing him obviously.

“Is this the one, father?”

“This is Tim,” Bruce says, “and you’re not allowed to fight him.”

“What?” Damian says. “Why not? I have the right to a trial by combat!”

Bruce is of the opinion he’s explained this more than enough, but he’s saved from having to explain it again by Slade speaking up.

“According to who?”

Damian turns, glaring at him.

“No, go on,” Slade says. “According to who? Who gives you the right to trial by combat?”

Damian stares at him, his mouth opening to reply, and then he seems to reconsider, snapping his mouth shut again.

“That’s what I thought,” Slade says. “Because the League of Assassin’s doesn’t have any actual  _rules_  for trial by combat, and if they  _did_ , that still wouldn’t apply here.”

Damian scowls at Slade.

“I’m Tim,” Tim says, offering a hand for a shake. Damian doesn’t take it, turning his attention to Tim just in time to glare at the offered hand.

“The current Robin?”

“The current Robin,” Tim confirms.

“Hmmm,” Damian says loudly, making no secret of his intentions as he looks Tim over. “I am unimpressed.”

“Harsh,” Jason says. “He’s got it out for you, Timmy.” He gives an exaggerated shake of his head.

“Do you always judge people before you see them fight?” Tim asks. Bruce fights the urge to jump to his defense, because Tim certainly doesn’t need it. “That seems like a particularly bad idea.”

Damian tsks.

“You are welcome to prove me wrong,” Damian says, “and then I will take your mask-”

“Damian,” Bruce says. “What did I say?”

“...That mantles are not taken, they are passed, and that only the one wearing it can choose a successor.”

It’s almost word for word what Bruce said to him, which tells him, at the very least, that Damian is listening. He’s just not really paying  _attention_.

“Don’t tell him  _that_ ,” Jason complains. “He’s just going to insist someone take him on as their protege.”

Jason’s acting like nothing’s happened, but Bruce is having a hard time of it. The wound’s a bit too fresh, so he keeps his eyes away for the time being.

“It wouldn’t hurt, you know,” Tim says.

“Oh god, kid,” Slade says. “Don’t encourage him.”

“I’m just saying,” Tim says, throwing his hands up. “We’ve got one, Dick’s got one, you’re the only one-”

“And you’re going to stick me with the  _kid_?” Jason asks. “One, I don’t want a sidekick. Two, I don’t want a teenage sidekick. Three, I sure as hell don’t want a  _child_  sidekick.”

“I’m not a child!” Damian protests.

“You’re twelve,” Jason says. “That’s a child.”

“I am perfectly capable of handling myself in battle!” Damian yells.

“And yet you couldn’t manage to go grocery shopping without killing someone,” Jason says.

“I could!”

“Perfect,” Jason says. “You can help Alfred with the groceries.”

Bruce thinks that’s an absolutely  _terrible_  idea.

“He should stay here,” Bruce says. “He doesn’t have any ID, he doesn’t have any experience-”

“I can handle myself,” Damian insists.

“Perhaps,” Alfred says, “it would do the boy well to get out of the house. See more of Gotham. I’m sure you and Master Jason could handle it.”

Alfred’s looking  _right_  at him.

“You want us to go  _shopping_?” Bruce asks, almost disbelieving.

“I’m sure the three of you can manage,” Alfred says. "Master Jason can handle himself, if either of you two find it to be overly difficult.”

Bruce isn’t entirely sure why, but he gets the impression that Alfred is torturing him.

He decides to treat it like a test. There’s no way to gauge how stunted Damian is socially without watching him deal with the public, and while Bruce would much rather he test things in more limited circumstances (how would he manage with Jim?), Alfred seems to favor throwing him into the deep end.

It occurs to Bruce--although he doesn’t have any proof--that the whole thing feels like a  _Slade_  idea. He wonders if they talked about it. It’s got his fingerprints all over it.

“Alright,” Bruce says. Alfred thinks it will be fine, and while he’s not  _sure_ , he has faith in Alfred’s judgement. If Alfred thinks they can handle it, then they can handle it.

“I honestly kind of want to tag along,” Tim says. “But lunch is over, and my spare period is over in thirty minutes, and I still have papers to grade.”

“I’ll film it for you,” Jason says. “Don’t you worry.”

He gives Tim a wink, and Bruce is  _absolutely_  sure that someone--definitely Slade, and maybe Alfred and Jason--are conspiring against him.


	14. Chapter 14

Bruce Wayne has never gone grocery shopping. He has been in a grocery store exactly once, chasing an armed robber.

He does not know what to do, and he is  _dying_.

Jason seems to be delighting in the entire situation.  _He_  obviously knows what to do. He does his own groceries. He knows how it all works.

Damian, to Bruce’s intense shame, is doing better than him. He clearly doesn’t know what to do either--he gawks a little bit too much at everything--but he’s hanging back, observing rather than directly interacting. Bruce, as the designated adult of the group, is forced to actually  _do_  things.

He doesn’t get a cart. Jason grabs a basket, whistling to himself. Damian gets a basket. Bruce doubles back and gets a basket. 

Jason catches on and makes a point of letting Bruce do everything first.

It is torture. Bruce would rather go ten rounds with Bane. He has no idea where anything is. He has no idea what he needs to get. Most of the people he spies have lists. He does not have a list.

He resists the urge to call Alfred.

“You are helpless, aren’t you?” Jason asks after they’ve spent thirty minutes in the store. Bruce has a loaf of bread in his basket. Damian’s is empty. Jason’s is full.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Bruce admits.

Jason takes pity on him. He walks Bruce through the store, dropping things into his basket.

Damian dumps a bag of okra into his basket and seems perfectly happy with himself.

He’s well behaved. He hasn’t jumped at anyone. He’s been almost completely silent, obviously observing the people around him. The person drawing the most attention is  _him_ , because he keeps picking things up, staring at them, and then putting them back on the shelf.

Someone takes a not-so-discrete photo of him, and Bruce feels himself die inside.

“My my my,” comes a too-familiar voice, and Bruce’s head snaps up.

Selina Kyle is standing less than twenty feet away. She’s not in costume--she has a shopping cart with a suspiciously large amount of cat food--and she’s smirking at him as she leans across the handle of the cart.

“Bruce Wayne,” Selina says, which firmly confirms to Bruce what he’s always suspected: that Selina knows _exactly_  who he was.

Jason obviously recognizes her, because his shoulders go tense, eyes narrowing.

“Jason,” Bruce says. “We are not doing this here.”

Beside him, Damian is dead silent.

“And you have...” Selina looks Damian and Jason over, making no attempt to hide her interest. “Friends?”

She knows. She  _has_  to know, because Selina isn’t stupid.

“Hello Selina,” Bruce says, trying to keep things as brutally formal as possible. He doubts it will last, but he  _tries_.

“Who is she?” Damian says, the _Father_  unspoken for once.

“Just what the cat dragged in,” Jason says, and Selina gives him a particularly nasty smile.

“You’re one to talk, you know,” she says. “I-”

“Selina,” Bruce says. “We are  _in a grocery store_.”

They can’t seriously be about to fight about their  _secret identities_  in  _public_ , can they?

“Spoil sport,” she says with a shake of her head. “I can’t say I expected to ever see  _you_  here. You look completely lost.”

“He  _is_  lost,” Jason says. “He has no idea what he’s doing.”

“Sad,” Selina says. “I really do need a man who can take care of himself, you know.”

Damian  _growls_ , and Bruce wonders if he’s been too quick to assume things were going well.

“He is not interested in you,” Damian says. “ _Harlot_.”

“Damian,” Bruce snaps. “That was-”

Jason cracks up.

“Did he just call her a  _harlot_?” Jason asks. “Are you serious right now?  _Harlot_? Why not just call her a jezebel while you’re at it?”

When Bruce glances down, Damian’s face is burning red with embarrassment.

“Quiet!” He snaps. “It is a perfectly appropriate term for her-”

Selina’s top  _is_  kind of low cut, but certainly not low cut enough to warrant getting called a  _harlot_.

“Damian,” Bruce says. “You can’t go around insulting people. Apologize.”

“Father, she-”

“Damian,” Bruce says, a note of warning in his voice. He’s not sure  _why_ , because he has no idea what he’d threaten him with. Sending him to bed without supper? It was easier with the others, because he could simply tell them they wouldn’t be going out that night as Robin. Damian doesn’t have that to dangle over his head, and even if he  _was_  going out, it wouldn’t be Bruce who got that say.

It makes things so much harder.

Damian grumbles, looking increasingly furious.

“Fine,” he says. “You are not a harlot. I should not have made such an accusation.”

Selina looks deeply amused by the entire conversation, and not at all offended by being called a prostitute. The whole thing is hard to take completely seriously when every single time the word  _harlot_  gets mentioned, Jason cracks up again.

Damian glares at him, and then looks up at Bruce.

“He is deeply unpleasant,” Damian mutters.

Bruce wants to get out of there. The less time he spends hanging out with Selina, the better, and he doubts either Damian  _or_  Jason is going to get along with her.

“Alright,” Bruce says, scooting Damian. “Let’s move along. We need to get home, don’t we?”

Selina gives him an exaggerated wave, still smirking at him.

Bruce’s basket ends up being a loaf of bread and a bag of potatoes. Damian has a giant bag of okra. Jason’s the only one with an  _actual_  basket, and he looks impossibly smug as he drops his basket down onto the conveyor belt.

Bruce tries to pay for it, but Jason elbows him out of the way, refusing to let him past.

Damian gets distracted by something, and when Bruce looks back, his basket has one of each and every candy placed neatly inside.

Not even Damian’s basket.

 _His_  basket.

“Bruce,” Jason says. “No. This is next level spoiling.”

“I should be allowed to try things!” Damian protests.

“He’s not getting them all to start,” Bruce says as he slides the basket up to the cashier. “He can earn them one by one.”

“What?!” Damian yells, a little bit too loudly.

“ _Calm,_ boy terror,” Jason says, and Damian scowls up at him even harder.

The poor cashier looks exceptionally confused, and Bruce hands her his card.

Or tries. She stares down at it, and then gestures to the debit machine.

“Please tell me you know how to use one,” Jason says.

“I know how to use one,” Bruce says, grumbling the entire time.

Damian obviously doesn’t, because he watches the entire interaction with intense focus.

Bruce doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to leave a building.


	15. Chapter 15

Despite everything that happened, Bruce is feeling pretty good on the ride home. For all his concerns about Damian’s ability to function around people who aren’t wielding swords and plotting the destruction of the human race, Damian’s proven that he’s perfectly capable of managing, at least in the short term.

Bruce is a  _little_  bit confused when Jason climbs into the back rather than the passenger seat, but he doesn’t question it. He’s learned better than to ask questions about the sometimes strange things Jason does. Things like leaving his door open while he sleeps. Things like a violent reaction to any sort of food that’s gone bad.

If Jason wants to ride in the back, he can ride in the back.

They’re almost home when Bruce decides he should address the situation, eyes flicking up to the rear-view mirror. Jason’s sitting normally, but Damian’s twisted about, staring out the window, his back almost entirely to Jason.

“I think that went well,” Bruce says. Even if he did run into Selina. No one was stabbed. There was a minimal amount of yelling.

Jason turns his head, staring out the window, and Bruce is pretty sure he winces.

No one says anything for the rest of the ride back.

He’s only just stopped the car when Jason grabs the back of his seat, leaning forward slightly.

“Sorry Bruce,” he says, and then things go to hell.

There’s a yell--from Damian, Bruce is pretty sure--and Jason jumps him. No matter what kind of skills Damian’s packing, he doesn’t stand a chance, caught off guard at close range. Bruce is pretty sure he sees Damian kicking at Jason’s side as they wrestle as he rips the driver's side door open. He needs to separate them. He has no goddamn idea  _why_  it’s happening, but he needs to separate them.

He’s only just got the back door open and reached out to grab the back of Jason’s shirt when Jason rears back, clutching something over his head.

It’s a knife.

Not one of  _his_  knives, which Bruce is absolutely sure he has on him somewhere at all times, but a kitchen knife, still encased in the safety plastic.

Bruce feels his gut sink.

“Knew it,” Jason says. “I  _knew it_. I knew you were up to something.”

Bruce didn’t notice a damn thing, but he steps back, letting Jason climb out of the car, his prize clutched in his hand.

“You took a  _knife_?” Bruce asks as Jason hands it over to him. Damian stole a  _knife_?

“Of course!” Damian yells, absolutely  _hollering_  from where he sits in the back seat. “I required a weapon, and your useless servant took my swords!”

Bruce is pretty sure he means  _Slade_  rather than  _Alfred_ , but right then probably isn’t the time for another  _he is a friend_  lecture.

“Inside,” Bruce says, doing everything he can to stamp down on his anger. “ _Now_.” He can’t get angry. He can’t start yelling. Four  _years_  of therapy is very suddenly strained to the absolute limit, and Bruce is sure he can feel his therapist screaming in the distance at the situation.

Damian doesn’t protest as he climbs out of the car, but he  _does_  glare at Jason.

For once, Jason doesn’t look smug. He looks annoyed, glaring right back at Damian.

Bruce rubs at the bridge of his nose, groceries forgotten in the back of the car. He still has the knife in his hand as they march into the house, trying frantically to come up with a plan. Damian and him? It should absolutely just be the two of them, but Bruce isn’t at all confident in himself. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to deal with someone  _stealing a knife_ to do  _god knows what with_.

“Slade!” Bruce yells when he’s inside, and the man might as well teleport he gets there so fast.

Bruce holds up the knife. Slade lets out a low little whistle in response.

Jason reaches up, taking the knife out of Bruce’s hand, and Bruce lets him.

“I’ll handle the rest,” Jason says. “Go deal with your kid.”

Bruce puts a hand on Damian’s back and push-slides him into a side room. It’s not even his office--Bruce isn’t sure he’ll get that far--but the waiting room has a door that’ll close, and that’s all that matters. Slade closes it behind him, and Bruce sits Damian down on a chair.

“A knife,” Bruce says the moment the door’s closed. “A knife, Damian?”

“I required a weapon,” Damian says, scowling in Slade’s direction. “ _Someone_  took all my weaponry. I cannot be caught empty handed!”

“Damian,” Bruce says, voice strained. “If you had been caught-”

Damian makes a strained noise.

“Caught?” He asks, looking absolutely outraged. “Father,  _no one_  would catch me. I have been trained by the best of the best. I can handle a little theft without being caught by some underpaid security guard.”

“That isn’t the  _point_ ,” Bruce says, turning away to rub at his temples. This is a strain he does not need. He absolutely should not be getting worked up, but he can’t just let Slade parent  _his_  child.

“Bruce,” Slade says, tone sharp. “Deep breaths.”

He can feel Slade’s eye on him as he counts out his breaths. He knows what Slade’s watching for, and he’s careful to get himself back under control before he tries again.

“The  _point_ ,” Bruce says as he turns back around. “Is that you put yourself at unnecessary risk for nothing. You do not need a knife. You are in absolutely no danger here. This manor has the best security system money can-”

“We were outside!” Damian says. “I needed a way to defend myself!”

For just a moment, Damian doesn’t look like an angry trainee of the League of Assassins. He looks like a scared child, worried he’s going to be hurt. Bruce’s anger ebbs, and he steps over, bending down on one knee so he’s at eye level with Damian, reaching up to touch his shoulder.

“Damian,” Bruce says. “You don’t. You really don’t. I know it’s hard to believe, but no one’s going to attack you here.”

“ _Father_ ,” he protests. “Even if the ignorant masses do not know that you are-- _were_  Batman, you are still very wealthy. Kidnapping attempts are common among people of our social circle-”

“Damian,” Bruce says. “Do you really think that, even completely unarmed, you’d be unable to stop a kidnapping attempt?”

Damian is silent, his eyes refusing to meet Bruce’s own.

“You are  _more_  than prepared for any kidnapping attempt. If someone tried to abduct you, I’d feel bad for the kidnappers. But in all the years I’ve been a father, no kidnapping attempt has so much as managed to lay a  _hand_  on any of the boys.”

Except the Joker. But he absolutely does not count, and Bruce refuses to mention him in front of Damian. He doesn’t need to know about that.

“...My training is poor,” Damian says, his voice very, very quiet. If Slade had normal hearing, Bruce is sure he wouldn’t be able to hear a damn thing, but he’s sure Slade hears every word.

Bruce gives him a weak little smile.

“You managed to do just fine for someone your age,” Bruce says. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

“It’s incomplete!” Damian protests, voice raising. “I should be better than I am-”

“Damian,” Bruce says. “It’s alright.”

“It’s not!” Damian says. He’s not  _crying_ , but he’s on the edge of it, tears pricking the edge of his eyes, face still the picture of fury. “I am-”

“You are just fine,” Bruce says, pulling him into a hug and holding him against him. “You’ve got a big adjustment, but you’ll be fine. You’ll be okay. You’ve got a whole bunch of people who’ll help you adjust.”

Damian buries his face in Bruce’s shoulder to hide his tears, and Bruce lets him stay there, unwilling to move.


	16. Chapter 16

When Bruce finally breaks the hug and glances over his shoulder, Slade’s gone. He’s not sure when exactly he left, but Bruce decides it was probably for the better. In the end, Slade hadn’t had to intervene at all.

Bruce is still happy he brought him into the room. He’s a grounding presence, a reminder that no matter how things go, someone will be there to make sure the worst case scenario doesn’t play out.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “You’re supposed to unpack groceries when you’re done, I’m pretty sure, so-”

“Do you not think your butler will have finished already?” Damian asks, scrutinizing his reaction.

“Alfred,” Bruce corrects. “You know his name, and you have no reason not to use it.”

Damian clicks his tongue and reaches up, wiping the last obvious signs of his earlier mood from his eyes.

“...Alfred,” he corrects.

Alfred has finished unpacking  _most_  of the stuff they got from the store by the time they reach the kitchen. The only thing remaining is a stack of candy bars atop the center island, and Jason’s already helped himself to one, working his way through his ill gotten gains.

“How dare you!” Damian protests. “Those are mine!”

“Wrestle tax,” Jason says. “Every time I have to fight you like that, I’m going to take a candy bar.”

It’s a silly, pointless threat, but Damian makes an outraged noise just the same.

“You need to learn to share,” Bruce says. “If you eat all those by yourself, you’re going to be sick.”

“Then I will be sick,” Damian protests.

“You can have  _one_ ,” Bruce says. “And then the rest will wait for now.”

Damian inspects his hoard, and then finally selects a chocolate bar. He glares at Jason the whole time he unwraps it, eyes locked, and then takes a big bite.

Damian makes a face  _immediately_ , looking absolutely disgusted.

Jason  _and_  Slade both look like they’re trying not to laugh.

“Oh dear,” Alfred says. “I was worried about this. I doubt you’ve had much exposure to processed sugars, and I’m afraid most candy will be a bit too sweet for you.”

Alfred holds out his hand, and while Damian swallows his bite down, he looks horribly unhappy about it, dropping the remains of the bar into Alfred’s hand.

“More for me,” Jason says.

“No!” Damian protests. “I will get better, and eat them all-”

“It’s not a matter of getting better,” Slade points out. “Just a matter of destroying your taste buds like Jason here.”

He reaches up, ruffling Jason's hair, and Jason swats his hand aside.

“It would be significantly better,” Alfred points out, “if you never acquired a taste for them at all. They are dreadfully unhealthy.”

Damian  _hmmms_ , scowling at the pile.

“How about this,” Jason says, “I get a bar after-”

“No!” Damian protests, and Jason rolls his eyes.

“Alright then,” Jason says, leaning back against the counter as he folds his arms across his chest. “Don’t listen to my offer.”

There’s a sudden silence as Damian stares up at Jason, suddenly uncertain.

“...What is your offer?”

“Oh no,” Jason says, holding his hands up. “You didn’t want it. You wanted to keep your chocolate bars that you don’t even like.”

“What was the offer!” Damian yells, sounding increasingly horrified.

“No, you said no-” Jason says.

“Father!” Damian says, spinning to face Bruce. “Tell Jason to say the offer!”

“Damian,” Bruce says with as much seriousness as he can muster. “I don’t think I could get Jason to brush his teeth at this point.”

He’s entirely confident that Jason’s going to relent shortly--maybe after Slade tells him to--and make the offer. He has no idea what the offer  _is_ , but he’s sure it’s going to be something Damian desperately wants.

He can’t tell if this is the part of some plan--although how could they plan this far ahead?--or if Slade’s just rubbed off on Jason so much that he’s started operating the same way.

“ _Jason_ ,” Damian says, and Bruce is pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever actually said his name. “Tell me the offer.”

“Tell me the offer  _please_ ,” Jason says.

“ _Jason_ ,” Damian repeats. “Tell me the offer  _please_.”

“I was thinking,” Jason says, seeming to be intentionally speaking as slow as possible to irritate Damian, “that since you were all worried about the fact that I kicked your ass, maybe I’d give you some training sessions down in the ca-”

Jason hasn’t even finished talking when Damian bolts, scooping each and every chocolate bar into his arms and presenting them to Jason in one big pile.

“I accept this offer,” Damian announces, literally dumping the candy into Jason’s arms. He’s got no choice but to accept it, because the alternative is making a big mess all over the floor with Alfred watching. “And since you have taken your reward already, you cannot take it back!”

“Ohhh,” Slade says. “He’s got you there. You know how strict I am on contracts.”

Jason rolls his eyes, dumping the pile of candy back onto the counter.

“Alright,” Jason says. “Let's go. And  _do not touch anything.”_

Damian’s practically  _bouncing_  on his way to the cave.


	17. Chapter 17

Alfred alone stays upstairs, and the rest of them head down into the cave. Technically speaking, the cave is neutral territory, partially inherited by Jason when he accepted the cowl, and partially maintained by Bruce. Even if he isn’t wearing the cowl, that hasn’t stopped him from working alongside Oracle to coordinate everyone’s efforts. They have more feet on the ground than ever, and making sure they don’t end up tripping over each other is a Sisyphean task.

Damian gawks. He stares at everything. He fixates on the row of old costumes in their display tubes, darting over to stare at each. Three costumes, with a fourth empty tube. He’s going to need to build a fourth.

Bruce’s own suit is in there, locked behind glass. It’s still ready if he needs it, but he hasn’t needed it, and so it remains untouched. Beside it is Dick’s Robin suit, left behind when he moved to Bludhaven and created a mantle of his own.

The third case holds the Arkham Knight armor, looking awfully out of place next to the other two.

Damian turns up his nose at it.

“Who designed this?” He protests. “It looks terrible.”

“It’s functional,” Jason says, heading over to the open training area. There’re rows of weapons hidden in their drawers, and he starts pulling them open, digging through as he looks for what he wants. “You’d be lucky to have an outfit half as good.”

“I wou-  _will_  wear something far better looking,” Damian insists. “More flexible.”

“Easier to stab,” Jason says. 

“You want these,” Slade says, straightening up from his bag of supplies as he tosses a sheathed ninja-to to Jason.

Jason catches it out of the air flawlessly, and Bruce settles into a chair to watch.

Damian looks like he’s strongly considering wrestling Jason for it, even knowing he’ll lose.

He doesn’t have to. Jason holds the sword out to him, and Damian snatches it up, literally hugging it to his body. It’s clearly too big for him--it’s made for someone of Deathstroke’s size--but he obviously knows his way around swords, because that doesn’t really hold him back.

“That’s Slade’s,” Jason says. “So treat it nicely.”

Damian scowls.

“He uses guns,” he declares. “He has no appreciation-”

“He can and will kick your ass with a sword, kid,” Slade says, pulling out his other sword. “Are we going to have to fight about it, just to prove you wrong?”

Damian pulls his sword, which answers the question. He’s obviously better with the sword than he is barehanded, but Bruce is more than confident in Slade’s skills. He’s fought him with a sword several times, and he  _knows_  how dangerous he can be with one, even if he uses his swords as weapons of last resort.

“Normally,” Slade says, flipping the sword around in a way that is  _absolutely_  just him showing off his control of it, “I fight with two. But I’ll manage with one, just for you, kid.”

Bruce leans forward in his seat to watch. He knows how good Slade is, and he’s confident he’ll not only win, but do so without hurting Damian. But he has no idea how good Damian is with a sword, or how well he’ll hold up. It’s a test to gauge his skills, even if Slade’s presenting it as an actual chance.

Slade beats him handily, but it’s not like the fight with Jason. It’s not just a  _I win and now it’s over_. Slade draws it out, withdrawing any time he gets too close to winning, testing Damian from all sides. 

Watching Damian feels familiar. His style is completely at odds with Slade’s own. Totally different way of moving. But Bruce would swear-

“Damian,” Bruce calls, and Damian only  _just_  catches Slade’s swing, going down hard on his ass. Bruce gets to his feet and walks over between the two as Slade sheathes his sword.

“Father!” Damian barks. “You distracted me! I was winning that time!”

It’s a credit to his character that Damian recognizes it was a  _that time_. He recognizes each loss, and he’s counting them as separate attempts.

“Who trained you?”

“I was trained by a multitude of-”

“Who trained you in  _swordsmanship_?” Bruce clarifies.

Damian pushes himself to his feet, straightening up as he sheaths his sword.

“I learned from  _Sensei_ ,” Damian says, and the way he says it makes it clear that it’s a name, not a title. “Before he passed from this world. I was his final student.”

“Your great-grandfather,” Bruce says.

He doesn’t  _mean_ it as a revelation. It’s something he’s known for years. The rank and file might not have known who the old man was, but Bruce certainly did, and he’s surprised when Damian’s eyes widen in confusion.

“No,” Damian says. “He was a trainer, not a relative. A member of the league.”

“He was your great-grandfather,” Bruce says. “Ra’s’ own father.”

“No!” Damian protests. “I would have known.”

“Your family kept many secrets from you Damian,” Bruce says. “Ra’s likely didn’t let Sensei make his relation known because it would have caused a power struggle.”

It’s the same with his name. Bruce strongly doubts his  _real_  name was Sensei. Whatever his name actually was, it’s been lost to time.

“He wouldn’t have let his father die!” Damian protests, and Slade lets out a low whistle.

“That is an  _impressive_  level of wrong,” Slade says.

“Damian,” Bruce says, trying the same thing he did before. He gets down on one knee, trying to get more on eye level with him, and reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder.

 _Grounding_ , Bruce hears his therapist saying.  _A physical sensation to ground them in the moment_.

“Your grandfather was good to you,” Bruce says, “but he also kept a lot from you. Ra’s al Ghul was a man with more secrets than there are stars in the sky. When we met, I was absolutely taken in by him. I believed he wanted the best for the world. But he misled me, and he misled you too.”

Bruce is hoping that by explaining that  _he_  was tricked by Ra’s, it’ll soften the realization for Damian. It doesn’t quite work, but only because Damian simply isn’t going to accept it.

“He was a good man,” Damian says, standing his ground. “You just didn’t know him well enough.”

Bruce decides that convincing a young boy his grandfather was evil is not the hill he wants to die on.

“I probably didn’t know him well enough, no,” Bruce says, and then glances up to where Slade still stands.

“How’s his form?”

“Fine,” Slade says. “Seems a bit rusty. Definitely not enough practice.”

“I was busy!” Damian protests, spinning around to glare at Slade. “I did not have time-”

“There’s  _always_  time to practice,” Slade says. “The question is if this is a skill we’re going to let lapse.”

“What?!” Damian says, absolutely shouting. “No! I need to be trained.”

“Swords aren’t exactly known for being  _non-lethal_ ,” Slade says. “And I’m sure you’re aware of your father’s code.”

Damian glances over his shoulder just to glare at Bruce.

“I am  _well aware_  of my father’s foolish code,” Damian says. “It is ignorant and short sighted. Criminals should be-”

“That is  _more_  than enough,” Bruce says. He is  _not_  going to let the three of them gang up on him. “The code stays. It’s important. If we don’t have it, Jim's well within his rights to arrest us.”

“He’s welcome to  _try_ ,” says Damian.

“Jim is a  _friend_ ,” Bruce says. “You’ll meet him before long. And he’s Barbara's father. He’d be your...”

Bruce tries to figure out how to explain the connection.

“Your sister-in-law’s father.”

“There’s  _another_  sibling?” Damian says, throwing his hands into the air. “You said there were only three!”

“Barbara isn’t mine,” Bruce says. “She married Tim.”

Damian grumbles.

“Foolish,” he mutters under his breath. “Why is this family so big?”

“Wait till he finds out about the rest,” Slade says.

“What?!” Damian says. “What rest?! How many more can there be?!”

Slade starts ticking off fingers.

“Well, we’ve got Azrael, two proteges joining the fold, Lucius-”

“Slade,” Bruce says desperately, “you’re just confusing him.”

“We’ve got a whole three ring circus of people,” Slade says. “And you  _said_  we’d be having a full group meeting with everyone soon.”

“That was before Damian showed up.”

“Father!” Damian barks. “Who is he talking about?”

Bruce grunts. He feels like he needs to pull out a map for Damian, but he’s a smart kid and seems to be doing an alright job keeping up.

“Azrael is a family friend,” Bruce says. “He doesn’t know our identities, but he’s another vigilante in Gotha-”

“You  _allow_  other vigilantes to work in Gotham?”

“Again,” Bruce says. “I do not have absolute control over the city.”

“You should,” Damian says.

“Agreed!” Slade chimes in. “Which is why I’ve been telling him to run for mayor for... three years? Four years?”

“The position is cursed,” Bruce says. “I have no idea why anyone would want it.”

Every mayor the city’s had has lasted two years  _at most_. It’s probably the most dangerous position in the entire city. Every person who takes the job either ends up dead or driven out of the city before long.

“Exactly,” Slade says. “Who better to break the curse? Just imagine someone trying to kidnap you. I’d bring popcorn.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. Slade’s a little bit  _too_  enthusiastic at the thought.

“Too much attention,” Jason points out. “He might be retired, but the rest of us aren’t. And in case you forgot, we have a  _wanted criminal_  living with us.”

Jason stares pointedly at Slade, who doesn’t look offended at all.

There’s the sound of a bell, and Damian’s head whips around.

“What?” He asks. “An alarm?”

“Dinner,” Jason says. Without missing a beat, he bends down, prying the sword out of Damian’s hand. He clearly doesn’t want to give it up, but Jason isn’t giving him a choice.

“You,” Jason says, “are going to earn any weapons. You don’t get them just because you were allowed to have them when you lived with the league.”

Damian releases the sword at the mention of  _earning_  his weapons.

“Alright,” he says. “I will play your game. But know that I will  _win_.”

“Sure you will,” Jason says, handing the sword back to Slade as they head up for dinner.


	18. Chapter 18

Dinner is a mundane affair. Bruce sits at the head of the table, and Damian takes the seat immediately to his right. It’s probably intentional, but he doesn’t mind. Slade and Jason sit where they always sit, with Slade at the foot of the table, with Jason to his right. Alfred, when he finally joins them, takes a seat near the middle, bridging the gap.

They’re interrupted midway through by a someone at the front gate, and Alfred insists they stay where they are while he attends to it.

There’s a tension, as there always is, as they wait to hear what it is. Unexpected visitors are  _rarely_  a good thing.

It turns out to be a courier with a package for Bruce, and once Alfred’s done all the standard checks he arrives, depositing it onto the table in front of Bruce. He doesn’t wait for dinner to be over, pulling it open.

He doesn’t recognize the purpose of the contents, and is just starting to read the included letter when Slade gives him his answer.

“Cheek swabs,” he says. “Probably for the kid. You’re trying to legalize him, right?”

“He doesn’t have a birth certificate, as far as I’m aware,” Bruce says, still reading the letter. “So I need to have my lawyers jump through a bunch of legal hoops.”

“Cheek swabs,” Slade confirms. “One for you, one for the kid. Then they can DNA test them. They’ll file the paperwork, and then you’ll probably have to go in front of a judge, confirm verbally he was born in the States, and sign some paperwork to get things going.”

Bruce glances up from the paper, squinting at Slade.

“How, exactly, do you know that?”

Slade looks as smug as ever.

“Looked into ways to generate alternative identities years ago. Came up as a plausible option for a younger associate of mine. Guy was mixed race, trying to build himself a legitimate identity and get out of the business. Looked into doing something a lot like what you’re doing for the kid.”

“Only illegally.”

“Details,” Slade says with a wave of his hand.

Bruce is already getting ready to swab his own mouth when Alfred frowns at him.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “If you swab your mouth mow, they’re going to identify Master Damian’s father as the chicken you just ate. Wait until your mouth is clean.”

Bruce puts the swab back down.

“Later,” he says. “They’re going to call me tomorrow morning and let us know what time slot we have-”

“ _Tomorrow_?” Slade asks, looking genuinely surprised for what Bruce feels is the first time in years. “He showed up  _last night_. It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours!”

“I called this morning,” Bruce says. “There was-”

Slade makes a disgusted noise.

“Please tell me you at least realize that most people have to wait  _weeks_  for this sort of thing, right?”

“I realize,” Bruce says. “Most people would take significantly longer on this. I don’t  _often_  use my resources like this, but in this case, I think ensuring that Damian has some kind of legal status takes priority. If anything were to happen, or he were to be questioned by the police...”

“It’d be a legal nightmare. I get it,” Slade says. “Just making sure you’re aware that this stuff normally takes  _time_.”

“So,” Jason says. “Going to hook me up?”

Bruce glances over, taking a moment to register. When it does, his heart sinks a bit.

“Just you?” He asks. “Or all three?”

“Four,” Jason says. “Barb’s coming.”

Bruce tries to focus on the fact that it’s four. Tim had already said as much, but Dick had been iffy. Four means Dick’s changing his name too.

“Do you have the paperwork done already?”

“Nope,” Jason says. “But we can get it all done tomorrow morning.”

Bruce has the distinct impression that the whole thing is being done extremely last minute. None of them seem to have done anything solid towards it, and the whole thing’s going to end up being rushed. But there’s an argument to be made about that not necessarily being a bad thing. Damian’s presence makes a perfect reason for the name change, and doing them all at once  _would_  make things easier...

He tries to focus on the positives. He tries to focus on Dick and Tim Wayne, and not Jason  _Wilson_.

“I’ll let them know,” Bruce says. “We won’t know the time until later, and it might be during the work day-”

“They can take the time off,” Jason says, as if that’s an easy thing for them to do.

Jason’s the  _only_ member of the family without an actual nine-to-five job, and Bruce thinks he’s probably not taking into account how most jobs look upon last minute plans.

Bruce weighs his options, and then decides to let it go. Even if not all of them can make it, it shouldn't really hold them back.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “I’ll leave it to you.”

Bruce can’t decide if things are going well or not. A part of him says  _yes, things are fine_ , because they’re sitting down eating dinner with no one screaming or getting stabbed. The other part of him says  _your son you didn’t know existed twenty-four hours ago stole a knife_.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says pointedly as he begins to clear the table. “In light of the situation, I’ve already alerted Mister Fox that you will need some time off. He was quite understanding, although I imagine a phone call wouldn’t be unwarranted.”

“I’ll call him in the morning,” Bruce says. “He should already be home by this point.”

“One would hope,” Alfred says. “But Mister Fox has a tendency to stay up as late as you used to.”

Bruce realizes Damian hasn’t said a single thing the whole dinner, and tries to subtly glance over, looking him over. His face is serious, staring down at his empty plate.

“Damian?” Bruce asks, and Damian starts.

“Yes, father?” He asks, turning to face him.

“Did you want more...?”

“No, father.”

Jason glances between the two of them. For a moment, he looks actually  _concerned_ , but it’s Alfred who seems to get closest to the truth.

“I suspect Master Damian would prefer to go to bed. It has been quite a long and busy day for him.”

Damian’s shoulders seem to sag slightly, and while Bruce doubts that it's the  _whole_  story, he suspects it’s still the truth. It’s earlier than they usually sleep, but they also usually don’t have to go  _grocery shopping_.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “Let's get you to bed.”


	19. Chapter 19

Bruce doesn’t leave Damian at the door. Instead, he goes inside, making sure he’s starting a routine. He is, which is impressive in its own right, and he goes through all the motions Bruce would expect from a boy his age before bed. 

Well, most boys don’t spend a bit of time  _meditating_  before they go to sleep, but Damian apparently does, his legs folded under him as he sits on the floor.

Bruce sits down beside him and waits.

After a few minutes, Damian cracks an eye open, regarding Bruce warily.

“You wished to speak to me, father?”

“A little bit,” Bruce says. “How are you feeling?”

“I am fine,” he says, his wariness obviously increasing. “Is there something specific you wished to speak about?”

Apparently Damian has about as much interest in small-talk as Jason does.

Even if he told Damian he could talk to him about anything, the boy hasn’t made any use of the offer. He has no idea what he’s thinking moment to moment, and doesn’t know him nearly well enough to guess.

“I am just trying to... to get a feel for things. For how you’re doing. For how you’re adjusting.”

“I am very adaptable,” Damian says, his eye sliding closed again. “Mother said it was my most advantageous trait.”

“She was probably right,” Bruce says. “But this is very different from being able to figure out how to fight with an unconventional weapon. You saw a lot of things today that... you probably hadn’t seen before.”

“I am not as ignorant as you assume, father,” Damian says, his eyes still pressed closed. “Understanding my enemy was an important part of our teachings. I understand how things are in Gotham.”

“Understanding and experiencing are two very different things,” Bruce points out. “It’s alright to admit you’re overwhelmed.”

“I am not overwhelmed.”

“If you  _are_ ,” Bruce says. “It’s alright to admit you are.”

“That would be showing weakness.”

“Which is perfectly acceptable.”

Damian cracks an eye open, squinting at Bruce.

“I believe most would disagree with you. Weaknesses are to be exploited.”

“A weakness,” Bruce says. “Is favoring one side over the other. Feeling overwhelmed because you’re in a strange situation, surrounded by people you don’t know isn’t  _weakness_ , Damian.”

Damian frowns at him.

“I am fine, father. Your concern is unnecessary.”

“My concern is happening no matter what,” Bruce admits. “You could be the most well adjusted kid on the planet and I’d still be worried.”

“Unnecessary,” Damian repeats. “I am adjusting. I am perfectly capable of being independent.”

“If you need anythin-”

“A sword.”

Bruce stops.

This is why he’s not supposed to say  _anything_ , isn’t it? Bruce is silent for a moment, figuring out how he wants to handle things before he arrives at something that’s  _probably_  going to work.

“Don’t you want to work with Batman?”

Damian squints at him again, unfolding his legs and shifting position so he’s cross legged.

“Yes. It is my rightful place.”

“If I give you a sword,” Bruce says, “Jason will see me as ignoring his wishes. We had an agreement about proteges.”

“Your agreement is foolish,” Damian says. “He has no right to dictate whether or not you can take on a disciple.”

“He isn’t dictating,” Bruce says. “It was a mutual agreement we came to after discussing it. I am not in a place where I can take on someone new. Jason isn’t either. So we agreed we wouldn’t without talking to each other first.”

“Except you have been ignored by both of your other children.”

Damian’s too observant by half.

“No,” Bruce corrects. “You said Jason has no right to dictate whether or not I could take someone on. But the same is true for us. Neither Jason nor myself have the right to dictate what either Tim or Dick are doing.”

“You should.”

“I shouldn’t,” Bruce counters. “I’m not in charge. We’re a  _team_.”

“You  _were_  in charge,” Damian protests, his voice rising slightly. “You were Batman. You ruled Gotham-”

Bruce fights back the urge to laugh. Laughing at Damian when he’s being so earnest is bad. It takes a lot of self-control to keep a straight face though.

“I didn’t rule Gotham,” Bruce says. “I never have. I never will.”

“You-”

“Your grandfather has misled you,” Bruce says. “Batman is supposed to be a symbol for the people. That someone is watching out for them. When I began to fight as Batman all those years ago, Gotham was... was rotten. The police were corrupt, the gangs ruled every street, and madmen did as they pleased. It’s taken years to get where it is now. Years of fighting crime as Batman, but also years of  _progress_. Of finding allies and supporting them. I couldn’t have done what I did alone.”

“Name one thing,” Damian says. “One thing others did you could not have.”

Bruce can’t tell if it’s a  _prove it_  or if Damian genuinely can’t figure out what someone else could have done that Bruce couldn’t have.

“Batman is one man. He can’t be everywhere. In order to function, I need to be able to count on the police to have his back and handle smaller crimes. So I put my trust in James Gordon. I knew he was a good man. A kind man. I knew he was the kind of man that Gotham needed. So I did what I could to keep him safe from the worst parts of Gotham’s underbelly, and when he took over as Commissioner, it gave us both a chance to save the department from itself.”

“You could have simply rooted them out,” Damian says. “You knew which were dirty. If you had taken care of them...”

“They wouldn’t have turned on each other. The corrupt would have protected the corrupt. But even if I had managed to arrest them, what then? Who would replace them? No decent cop would take their place, knowing how rotten the department was. They'd avoid it like the plague. When Jim took over and made it his personal mission to clean the department, it gave people hope. Good people decided to join the force. People transferred in to help the effort. It’s not something Batman could ever have done. I don’t inspire hope the way someone like Jim does.”

Damian listens, completely enraptured by the explanation. Bruce doubts he’s ever heard the story, his education on Gotham so piecemeal it’s almost useless. He also doubts anyone’s ever explained to him the importance of inspiring  _hope_.

“Who else?” Damian asks.

“Else?”

“Who else is there? You said you have allies. Surely you did not just mean one police officer.”

Bruce thinks it would take all night to list them all, but he doesn’t need to list them  _all_. He just needs to give Damian an idea.

“A lot of cops these days,” Bruce says. “Once upon a time, it was just Jim. Now Bullock’s gone straight, and Cash joined the GCPD. Lucius Fox handles Wayne Enterprises' day to day business and provides us with technical support and gear. He’s responsible for most of the equipment you’ll find in the cave. Doctor Thompkins provides medical assistance as needed. Joseph provides me with information on what’s happening in Blackgate. Azrael has never asked for anything from us, but is always willing to lend a hand when-”

“I understand, father,” Damian says solemnly. “It is important to have allies. Allies can... do things you cannot. Can allow you to have eyes everywhere.”

His lips are pressed together in a thin line.

“But you think I’m wrong,” Bruce says carefully.

“Things would be easier if you could  _assure_  their loyalty,” Damian says. “Any of them could betray you.”

“You mean by threatening them,” Bruce says. “To ensure they won’t betray me.”

“Exactly,” Damian says excitedly. “If you had a way to assure-”

“Blackmail,” Bruce says. “Do you know the problem with blackmail?”

Damian pauses for a moment, thinking it over.

“That they might render the information useless via preemptive disclosure?”

“Blackmail rots a relationship,” Bruce says. “The moment you start trying to force someone to do something, they become resentful. Someone who might have willingly helped you before suddenly becomes your enemy. Batman has enough enemies as things stand. He doesn’t need any more.”

Damian is silent for a long while, and then nods.

“I understand, father.”

“You don’t have to understand it right now,” Bruce says. “It’s a big change for you. Just... something to think about.”

Damian nods.

“You should go to bed,” Bruce says. “It’ll be a long day tomorrow. You want to be well rested.”

“Of course, father.”

Bruce almost wants to ask him to call him  _Bruce_ , because hearing himself being called  _father_  so much is making his head spin. But there’s no actual harm in it, so he simply tells himself it’s something he’ll have to adjust to.

“Goodnight, Damian,” he says, hesitating at the door for a moment before nodding and excusing himself.


	20. Chapter 20

Bruce wakes to his alarm. Waking to his alarm is  _always_  a good thing, because it means he’s not waking to an  _alert_ , or an explosion, or someone yelling. Those times have gotten fewer and farther between since Jason took on the cowl, but that doesn’t mean it’s stopped.

He works out, showers, and then dresses. It’s eight already, so he calls Lucius on his way down to the cave.

“Bruce,” Lucius answers. “Good to hear from you.”

“Sorry for missing work,” Bruce says.

“Please,” Lucius says, the laughter visible in his voice. “Assuming that Alfred hasn’t suddenly developed a taste for pranks, I think a long lost son takes priority.”

“It does,” Bruce admits. “I was trying to be nice. I know you told Alfred you liked having me around more.”

“I can manage,” he says. “Should I be expecting a new equipment order?”

Bruce isn’t sure. His instinct is to say  _yes_ , because having more gear handy never hurt anyone, but the thought of Damian going out at night...

“Maybe,” Bruce says. “I’ll let you know.”

Bruce stays on the phone as he reaches up, pulling out a strand of hair and setting it onto a slide. The batcave has some of the best microscopes money can buy, and while they’re  _supposed_  to be used for investigation, the check  _is_  a matter of security.

He clicks his tongue as he checks the strand.

“Still green?” Lucius asks. He’s used to the routine. He knows when Bruce checks.

“Still green,” Bruce confirms, checking it against his control just to be sure before discarding it.

“Eventually,” Lucius points out, “you’ll go grey.”

“Already started,” Bruce says. “I dye it out.”

“ _Really_?” Lucius asks. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“The grey makes the green too obvious,” Bruce says. “Blends in on my usual hair color unless you know what to look for.”

He’s gotten used to the changes, but that doesn’t mean he’s stopped checking them. He’s still a little bit paler than he used to be. His hair’s still tinted green. And his eyes, once bright blue, now have flecks of green in them.

It’s not something that stands out, but Bruce  _knows_  what they mean, and it bothers him.

His therapist told him once that he’d be shocked if it  _didn’t_.

“I need to go check on him,” Bruce says. “I’ll keep you updated, Lucius.”

“Of course,” he says. “But it was good speaking with you.”

He finishes the call out on his way back up to the manor. It’s quiet--no sign of Jason or Slade, who are probably sleeping after a long night--but he finds Alfred in the kitchen, already preparing breakfast.

“Master Bruce,” he says with a small nod. “Have you seen Master Damian yet?”

“Wait, he’s up?” Bruce asks, confused.

“Already in the training room,” Alfred confirms. “He complained rather loudly that you sleep in too late, and that you should have already been up for hours.”

“It’s  _eight AM_.”

Alfred gives him a knowing smile, and Bruce heads down towards the training room.

He finds more or less what he expects. Damian, dressed in pajamas (which are a little bit easier to move in than his other clothes), beating the stuffing out of a punching bag. A lot of the moves feel familiar, and Bruce suspects they shared at least some of the same trainers. Ra’s, yes. Talia, yes. But the way Damian handles his body blows has Bruce’s old trainer Kirigi written all over it, and Bruce already knows he trained members for the league.

Damian seems intensely focused, not looking at Bruce when he steps in, but there’s a subtle change in his body language after he does. He knows he’s there, he’s just putting on a show, demonstrating his skills to an audience rather than actually  _training_.

“Damian,” Bruce says. “I already know you’re good. You don’t have to show me.”

“You do not  _know_ ,” Damian says without looking. “You suspect. The only time you witnessed me in action was a fight that didn’t even last a full ten seconds!”

He sounds frustrated, and it shows in how viciously he hits the bag.

“The fact that you lasted a full ten says a lot about your skills,” Bruce says. “Jason’s a good fighter. It’s one of the reasons he’s so good at what he does.”

“You made a poor choice,” Damian says. “Jason is obviously quick to anger. He’s easy to rile up. Dick-”

Damian makes a face at his name.

“Dick or Tim would have made a better choice.”

Bruce wonders, just for a moment, if this is Damian  _explicitly_  testing his commitment to  _you can tell me anything, even if it’ll upset me_. Despite his initial reservations about someone else having the mantle, he’d seemed impressed when he first dealt with Jason. For that matter, even after Jason stole his knife he’d seemed more or less fine with him, and he has a hard time believing Damian somehow  _forgot_  that Jason had handed him a sword the night before.

It seems entirely out of place.

“Jason is a good Batman,” Bruce says, leaning up against the door frame as Damian starts working through his routine again. “He brings a lot to the table that the others couldn’t. You just haven’t seen it yet.”

“There is nothing to see,” Damian says. “He is young and impulsive.”

“He-”

Bruce stops himself, taking a deep breath. This is fine. He can justify this. He just has to see it as the test that it is, rather than Damian trying to actively insult Jason.

“He’s better at winning the public’s heart,” Bruce says. “The working man. The man who can’t even work. He has people willing to report to him who would never have gotten within a hundred feet of me.”

Damian’s eyes light up, and he stops his routine to turn and look.

“He has a spy network?”

“He has  _informants_ ,” Bruce corrects. “Not people he pays. But people who trust him to help them, who are willing to let him know what’s happening around Gotham even at risk to themselves.”

Damian looks him up and down.

“I don’t understand.”

“Let's say that the Falcone family came back to Gotham. They’re an old crime family, and one of the first groups I fought in Gotham. They’ve fled to Bludhaven, and now Dick has to deal with them, but let's say, for our hypothetical, that they came back. How would I find out?”

“From Dick, I would assume.”

“How would Dick know?”

“Because he is not incompetent?” Damian asks, with a tone that makes it clear he thinks the question is stupid.

“No,” Bruce says, “I mean, what skill helps him get that information? It’s not as if they’ll have a calendar up in their base saying  _move these people to Gotham at this time on this route_.”

Damian shrugs.

“Dick might  _suspect_ , but things are rarely so cut and dry that he just  _knows_. And even if he did, what then? Knowing that the Falcone family is operating in Gotham means nothing. It doesn’t give us bases. It doesn’t tell us who to look for. Gotham’s a big place, and people can vanish into its underbelly for  _years_  without us being able to find them.”

“So what then?” Damian says. “How do you find them?”

“I didn’t,” Bruce says. “If something was happening among Gotham’s elite, then Bruce Wayne could know, and Batman could act. Sometimes the police would let me know. But that limited me. There were so many things I couldn’t act on, because I simply didn’t know they were happening.”

Damian is silent for a moment, and then nods.

“I understand, father. You say that Jason has a better solution?”

“Jason is  _loved_  by the people of Gotham. I was always feared by the criminals, and many saw me as a necessary evil. But they  _love_  Jason. They care for him. And when something happens, he’s the one they go to. If the Falcone family came back while I was in the cowl, I would find out only when the violence got bad enough that Jim caught wind of it. If they came back now, Jason would have sent them packing within a week.”

Damian looks impressed, which is absolutely a good sign. It means he’s not just listening because he has to. It means he’s  _listening_ , really paying attention to what Bruce is saying.

“How?”

“Hm?”

“How did he do that? Why could you not?”

Bruce is pretty sure he could spend all day explaining, and he opens his mouth to try before cutting himself off.

“How about,” Bruce says after a moment. “We get breakfast. You get dressed. And then I’ll take you down to the cave and explain the current state of things in Gotham, and we’ll see what you can come up with to try and solve the problem.”

“The problem of how to find out if the Falcone family came back?”

Bruce nods.  _Telling_  Damian would probably be less effective than _showing_  him. Better to learn by example. Better to get a good idea of what Jason’s dealing with, and why he’s doing better.

Damian seems happy with the possibility, nodding right back.

“I will go change, father,” he says. “And then we can train.”

He darts off before Bruce can tell him that it’s an  _explanation_ , not  _training_. 

He guesses it kind of  _is_  training if you look at it the right way.


	21. Chapter 21

Bruce thinks that Damian gives Jason a run for his money when it comes to fast eating. He devours his way through breakfast like he’s a rabid animal, and the moment his plate is cleared he sits up straight, the picture of innocence, staring at Bruce.

Bruce eats at a  _normal_  rate, much to Damian’s obvious annoyance.

Slade arrives midway through, settling in to eat.

“Plans?” He asks Bruce in between bites.

“Waiting to hear from my lawyers. I’m going to tell Damian about Gotham,” he says. “You?”

Slade  _always_  has something to do. It’s almost impressive how he manages to keep busy.

“Old contact of mine had some info to sell,” Slade says. “Going to meet with him for lunch, and then talk with Lucius about some modifications to the Knight armor.”

“Try not to keep him too busy,” Bruce says. “He’s handling my workload for a while.”

“Like he wasn’t  _already_  handling your workload,” Slade says.

“I’ve been pulling my weight,” Bruce protests, and Slade rolls his eye.

Slade leaves before Alfred’s even started clearing the table, but he’s on a schedule so it’s not much of a surprise. Jason’s likely still asleep, so Bruce settles for heading down into the cave, sliding into the seat in front of the computer and gesturing for Damian to grab one of the extras as he pulls up a map of Gotham.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “In previous years, crime in Gotham had two layers. You had  _organized_  crime, and then you had  _super_  crime. When Sonny Viti decides to shake down a street for protection money, that’s organized crime. When Killer Croc-”

“I know the difference, father,” Damian says. “I am well versed in different kinds of criminal activity. This was all part of my education.”

Bruce pauses, and decides to skip the basic summary.

“The Falcone family that I mentioned used to almost single-handedly handle organized crime in Gotham. Over the years, they had more and more competition, and started losing power against those who were more on the  _super-criminal_  side of things. Lost the docks to Black Mask. Lost their weapon smuggling business to Penguin. They lost enough power that the don was arrested, and they were forced to fight for their place in Gotham. They ended up in turf war with the Maroni family, and when Mayor Sharp took over and couldn’t be bribed, they were increasingly pushed out. The Falcone family ended up wiping out the Maroni family before they left, and then fled to Bludhaven.”

Bruce pulls up a map of the old Falcone territory, overlaying it onto the map of Gotham.

“This is their old territory,” he says. “The bits in red were their core areas. Here’s the old Maroni territory...” He pulls up another map. “And the current territory of what remains.”

“They have almost nothing. Why bother tracking them?” Damian asks, staring at the tiny square.

“To show how far they fell,” Bruce says. “And to make sure they don’t have a resurgence.”

He pulls up more maps, laying them one over another. Different groups. Different gangs. In some places, the territories overlap, the colors mixing as Damian watches Bruce go over each and every one.

“So,” Bruce says, tapping the map. “How do you deal with it? How do you find out if the Falcone family is coming back?”

“Watch the docks,” Damian says. “You said they used to work out of there.”

“The docks are part of the usual patrol route,” Bruce says, “but there are a lot of docks. Gotham has miles of coastline, and plenty of places for someone to bring a boat up. Just because they’re coming back doesn’t mean they’ll use the main dock.”

Damian is silent for a moment, staring up at the map.

“I... do not know what you would do. I only know what the league would do.”

“And what would the league do?”

“Find old Falcone family associates and ensure they understand what the league has to offer for their loyalty.”

The  _by any means necessary_  is implied. Bruce knows how the league works. He knows they’re willing to threaten people’s lives, and the lives of their families.

“We don’t threaten people that way. We don’t blackmail.”

“Because it rots the relationship.”

Bruce nods.

“Allies are more important than someone you have under your thumb.”

Damian nods right back. It’s a lesson he seems to have caught onto, even though it’s a big change from what he’s been brought up with.

“How then?” Damian asks. “How do you find allies?”

Bruce gestures to the map.

“What is the most important part of the city?”

He hears the sound of the cave door opening, and expects to see Alfred soon. He doesn’t let that distract him though, keeping his focus on Damian and the lesson.

Damian stands, leaning forward to inspect the map. There’s a ton of detail, and Bruce isn’t expecting him to get it right, but he’s proven wrong when Damian jabs his finger to a spot just south of the city center.

“There,” Damian says. “On the edge of almost every territory. Claimed by multiple gangs as their own.”

Bruce smiles to himself, nodding even though Damian’s too intently focused on the screen to notice.

“The block directly south of where you pointed is the headquarters for Wayne Outreach, a branch of Wayne Enterprises. They aim to give back to the community, and operate a number of homeless shelters and soup kitchens around Gotham.”

Damian pauses, glancing over his shoulder, his eyebrows furrowed together.

“...So that you can spy on people?”

“No,” Bruce says. “So that we can help Gotham. A lot of our programs are set up to help people get off the streets. People who need housing. People who need jobs. Wayne Enterprises is one of the largest employers of the homeless in Gotham.”

Damian’s still squinting at him, and Bruce realizes that he still doesn’t really  _understand_.

“The first people who would find out the Falcone family were back in Gotham aren’t the police. They’re the people in the city who have to deal with them. The people they’re shaking down for protection money. The people they’re threatening. And most of those people won’t  _ever_  go to the police. They want to keep their head down. They don’t want to draw attention. Part of this...” Bruce reaches up, tapping the space where Wayne Outreach sits. “Is about giving people options. Ways out. But a part of it is also about having some kind of official figure in the part of town the most plagued by gang violence who people can trust. Sometimes people come and report to them things they’ve heard, and that information gets filtered through us. Sometimes batman finds out. Sometimes we just tell the police. Sometimes things get overheard in the soup kitchen. We run three clinics, including one at the headquarters, and we often get people who’ve been hurt coming in who are afraid to go to hospitals for fear of the gang finding out.”

Damian stares with rapt attention at Bruce. He’s intrigued, his focus complete and absolute, and after a moment he nods, his eyes flicking only briefly to the side 

“If the Falcone family returned to Gotham...” Damian says quietly. “Then the people would find out first. In the old system, they wouldn't have wanted to report it. But this way, you’re hoping they’ll tell you. You’ve made the whole city into your spies.”

Bruce smiles.

“No,” Bruce corrects. “ _Jason_  made the whole city into his informants. Wayne Enterprises has always run community outreach programs, but it was Jason’s idea to reorganize them. To make them more... forward facing. Their own thing, rather than just a part of Wayne Enterprises.”

Damian’s mouth has formed a little  _o_ , the surprise written all over his face.

“Jason?” He asks, as if to confirm he’s heard right.

“Jason runs Wayne Outreach. Officially, most people assume it’s simple nepotism. He’s related to the Waynes, so they give him a cushy job running a non-profit connected to Wayne Enterprises. But he impresses the people who work there with his dedication to the job. Impresses the people he helps by getting his hands dirty. Jason earned the people’s love and respect as a  _person_ long before he earned it as Batman.”

Damian is silent for a moment, and then nods.

“Perhaps I spoke too quickly. Perhaps Jason  _was_  the right choice.”

Bruce feels a glow of pride.

“...But I would still be better,” Damian adds hastily, and Bruce grins at him.

“Well, you’ve got years to prove to Jason you deserve the cowl. The city's not going to embrace a twelve year old batman, you know.”

“You’re right,” Damian says. “I should be at  _least_  sixteen.”


	22. Chapter 22

The door into the manor is already open when Bruce goes to leave the cave a few minutes later. It feels odd and slightly out of place, but when he glances into the hall, Alfred’s in the middle of cleaning.

Jason  _still_  hasn’t shown up.

“Did Jason already leave?” Bruce asks. He doesn’t _think_  he’s going to work. He hopes not, anyway.

“Not yet,” Alfred says. “I believe he plans to stay at home today so that he can go to the courthouse with you. He’s in his room right now.”

Alfred’s always been hard to read, but for just a moment Bruce gets the vibe that he’s hiding something. It makes him wary, but he tries to push the idea away. There’s nothing to worry about. He trusts Alfred with his life.

“I was thinking,” Alfred says, “that Master Damian might want a tour of the house. He’s only seen parts of it, after all. And I believe you have some calls to make?”

Bruce  _always_  has calls to make, so he’s more than happy to see Damian off with Alfred for a tour as he retires to his office. He gets a time slot from his lawyer, sending a quick email to Jason, Dick, and Tim, and then burns through some work for the company.

Eventually, Alfred knocks on the door, opening the door to reveal Damian standing just behind him.

“Master Bruce?” He prompts. “We should probably get going.”

“Is Jason already up...?”

“He’s at the door already, sir.”

He was expecting Jason to pop in. He was expecting... something. Instead, it feels like he’s being avoided, and the situation is so backwards that Bruce is having trouble wrapping his head around it.

 _He’s_  the one who’s hurt. Even if he knows that Slade’s been more than there for Jason, it still hurts.

And yet Jason’s avoiding  _him_. Has he been showing it too much? Is it too obvious?

His  _Jason has been avoiding me_  theory is all but cemented when he finds out that Jason has claimed the passenger seat, leaving Bruce and Damian in the back.

“Master Dick and Master Timothy should be arriving shortly,” Alfred says. “Miss Barbara is coming along with them. The firm has already called to let me know they have a lawyer waiting to go over the paperwork.”

Jason’s silent for almost the entire ride over, and Bruce tries to prompt him carefully.

“Paperwork all done, Jason?”

“Yep,” Jason says.

He doesn’t say anything else, and Bruce is forced to give in, at least temporarily.

Damian spends the entire car ride with his face up against the window, watching Gotham flash by.

When they pull up to the back of Gotham’s central courthouse, Alfred chooses to pull in beside Dick’s Porsche. It’s baby blue, obviously expensive, and Damian makes a face the moment he sees it. Dick’s already there, leaning up against it as he waits for them to climb out.

“Is that what you’re driving now?” Jason asks as he climbs out. “That looks  _hideous_.”

“You’re just jealous,” Dick says. “Because your car looks like someone took a tire iron to it.”

“If I went to work in a car like that, someone would steal my tires before I’d even finished parking.”

Dick’s car looks brand new, which Bruce knows is largely due to constant maintenance.  _Jason’s_ car works just fine, but also looks extremely poorly maintained, largely on purpose. It’s the fastest way to make sure no one tries to steal it.

“I believe we all know whose car Master Jason is the most jealous of,” Alfred says, right as Tim pulls in. His convertible is a bright cherry red, and Bruce wonders why it is that all his children have a desire to pick the flashiest cars possible.

Tim visibly sulks when he’s forced to park a whole row over from the others. He helps Barbara out while the rest wait, and when they arrive, Barbara rolls right up to Bruce.

“I am going to have to redo my business cards, you know,” she says.

Mercifully, she doesn’t roll over his toes. Instead, she rolls over to where Damian stands, offering her hand for a shake.

Damian stares at the offered hand, and after a moment takes it, giving it a shake.

“Barbara Gordon-Drake,” she says. “For however long this takes, anyway.”

Bruce’s lawyer is waiting just inside the courthouse, waving them down before giving Bruce a firm handshake. Bruce doesn’t know him personally, but he  _knows_  the firm, and he trusts their choices.

The man immediately hands over a package.

“All your paperwork is in there, Mr. Wayne. One of the partners recommended you do the cheek swab in the presence of a judge, just for added authenticity.”

“We haven’t done it yet,” Bruce confirms, and Alfred produces the bag they’ve brought with them.

“Perfect,” the lawyer says. “Everything has more or less been handled. The two of you will go in, present the paperwork to the judge, do the cheek swab, and then that should mostly be it. You’ll probably be asked a few questions, but the bulk of the work’s already finished with the paperwork.”

Bruce has never been through  _this_  song and dance before, but he’s dealt with the law enough to know what to expect.

Bruce doesn’t even get called first. Everyone  _else_  gets called first, shuffling through big stacks of paperwork as they file into a room at the end of the hall.

Damian is silent, watching the others as they go, and then goes back to people watching as they wait. The part of the courthouse they’re in is almost empty, with only officials and workers filing back and forth. Bruce suspects that’s on purpose. If they were in the  _normal_  waiting room, they’d draw too much attention, and the only person who wants attention less than him are the people who actually have to deal with it as a job.

“Mr. Wayne?” A clerk calls, leaning into the hallway. “The judge will see you now.” 


	23. Chapter 23

Bruce doesn’t know this judge, but he knows  _of_  her, and that’s what matters.

Bruce knows  _every_  judge. He’s known every judge since he first put on the cowl. He’s researched them. He knows which ones are dirty and which ones are clean. He also knows which ones  _were_  dirty, but have since reformed.

There are a lot of those. Ones that went dirty because they cracked under the pressure, giving in to threats. Bruce can’t entirely blame them. When someone’s threatening your family, most people don’t have the option of saying no.

The room’s empty when he and Damian step in, the folder of paperwork tucked under his arm. It’s not a proper  _court_ , more of an office than anything, and the judge stands, offering her hand when she sees Bruce come in.

“Mr. Wayne,” she says. “My name is Judge Gibbs.”

“I’m aware,” Bruce says, giving her hand a shake. “I try and keep up with all the officials in Gotham, if only so that I don’t embarrass myself in front of them at any galas.”

She hasn’t been to any of his, he knows, but he’s sure she’s heard of them.

“Unlikely to happen any time soon,” she says, sitting as she gestures for him to sit. “The case load I’m under means no galas will be happening any time soon.”

“Hopefully my request isn’t taking too much of your time.”

“Generally,” she says, “I’d be wary of any sort of private meeting with someone of your position. However, the circumstances were explained to me, so I’m willing to make an exception.”

She turns her attention to Damian, who’s sitting perfectly straight on the chair, his hands folded in his lap. He’s the  _picture_  of a well behaved child, and she glances back to Bruce.

“Your son?”

“Damian Wayne,” Bruce confirms. “Assuming all the paperwork goes through.”

“I can already imagine what the press would say,” she says. “Cheek swabs?”

Bruce passes over the sealed package, and she inspects them briefly before handing them back. He does his own without even thinking about it--he’s done them plenty of times before--and then walks Damian through his cheek being swabbed.

The judge takes them, setting them down on her desk as she goes through the paperwork.

“Damian Wayne?” She asks. “No middle name?”

Bruce turns to Damian, who turns to him.

“I didn’t have one,” Damian says after a moment. “Do the others?”

“Dick's is John,” Bruce says. “Jason's is Peter. Tim's is Jackson.”

“That’s a yes,” Damian says, frowning deeply.

The judge’s eyebrows go up, glancing between the two of them, her face making it  _very_  obvious that this exact issue was something they should have discussed earlier.

“What would you have used?” Damian says. “If you’d been there?”

Bruce has never really  _thought_ of the answer. It never came up. He never once had to sit down and think  _what would I name my son, if I had one_? He’d never been in that position.

But the answer comes easily.

“Thomas.”

“Thomas,” Damian confirms, turning to the judge.

She smiles, just a little bit, and writes it down.

There’s a whole stack of paperwork, and she goes through it all with impressive speed, flipping page by page as she does.

“Once the birth certificate is filled out,” she says, “it’s not official for another month. Things need to process. The DNA results need to come back to confirm things. I’ll issue a temporary ID in order to minimize any possible trouble, but he absolutely can’t travel on it. I imagine you want to get him registered for school-”

Bruce is pretty sure it’s far too early for  _that_.

“-But you’ll need to wait for the paperwork to clear. Starting with the new school year would probably be better.”

“Of course,” Bruce says.

The judge pulls a sheet of paper that Bruce is pretty sure is the birth certificate, filling it out neatly as she goes.

And then she stops, head coming up.

“Mother’s name?”

Bruce hasn’t even opened his mouth fully when she clicks her tongue.

“I’d prefer to hear it from him, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce’s brain screeches to a halt, and only  _years_  of operating as the Batman keeps the panic off his face. She wants to hear the name from  _Damian_? Bruce has the entire story figured out. He knows exactly what he’s going to say. He has evidence--some true, some misleading--to back up all his claims.

Damian doesn’t know all that. Damian only knows what Bruce told him: that he’d prepared things, because obviously they couldn't just say  _Damian is the grandson of Ra’s al Ghul, and was kidnapped by the mercenary Deathstroke from the League of Assassin’s compound._

Damian has absolutely no idea what to say. He has no idea what Bruce has prepared. And Bruce can’t help him at all without the entire thing looking so monumentally suspicious that any judge who wasn’t irredeemably corrupted would stop the whole thing right there.

He’s going to have to go with whatever Damian says. If Damian says  _Talia al Ghul_ , Bruce is going to have to deal with that being on the paperwork. If Damian makes up a name, Bruce is going to have to commit that to memory.

“I...” Damian says quietly, his eyes dropping. His shoulders slump. He looks like an upset twelve year old boy, the picture of innocence.

“I don’t want to say.”

Bruce has  _absolutely no idea_  what Damian’s doing, but is forced to roll with it, reaching out to pat Damian’s back in what he hopes is a comforting manner.

The judge looks concerned. She’s right to be.

“Is everything all right...?”

“My mother was... my mother was...”

Bruce realizes that Damian is on the verge of  _crying_ , reaching up to rub at his face. Is this real? Bruce has  _no idea_  if he’s just so good at faking it he can cry at the drop of a hat, or if it’s entirely genuine.

“My mother was... was not a good person. And now that she’s gone, bad people might come after me. So it's... it’s probably better if I don’t say her name at all. So that they can’t find me and dad.”

The  _dad_  gives it away. The  _dad_  feels out of place. But Bruce has some very strong suspicions that at least some of the emotion is genuine. Lies are always better with a grain of truth.

The judge looks, alarmed, to Bruce, her eyebrows raising in silent question.

“I have the best security money can buy,” Bruce says. “But there is a chance that her extended family might be searching for him, yes. They were... their family situation was not a healthy one.”

The judge nods knowingly. Bruce hasn’t said a single word that’s a lie, but his phrasing is no doubt leading her to an explanation that’s a lot more simple than  _league of evil ninjas_. He doubts this is the first time she’s dealt with an abusive family situation, and he knows it won’t be the last.

The judge taps her pen on the desk for a moment, and then turns her attention to Damian, the picture of misery.

“Do you love your mother?”

He nods without hesitation, head bobbing up and down.

“And you?” She asks, turning to Bruce.

There’s only a moment’s pause, and then Bruce nods his head.

He wonders how different things would be if she were still alive.

“Then,” she says, pulling out another piece of paper, almost blank, and starting to write, “I am going to put in a special order to have his birth records sealed after filing. They’ll be sealed for a period not exceeding ten years, which I think should be more than long enough to keep anyone from bothering you.”

Bruce wasn’t even aware they could  _do_  that. He gets the impression they probably don’t usually, but special exemptions can always be made. In this case, the special exemption is  _making sure a child’s life isn’t in danger_ , and the judge seems perfectly content to make it.

“Now,” she says, flipping back to the birth certificate. “Your mother’s name?”

Bruce offers a prayer to any god who might be listening that the judge isn’t going to recognize it.

She doesn’t. There’s no recognition when Damian says  _Talia al Ghul_ , although she does need him to spell it out to make sure she gets it right.

“There,” she says, signing the birth certificate. “I’m sure your lawyers will keep you updated, Mr. Wayne.”

She hands over a small card--a temporary ID for Damian--and then shakes his hand. Then she bends down a bit to address Damian, who still has tears in the corners of his eyes, and smiles at him.

“You did very well,” she says. “I’m sure your mother would be proud.”

Bruce thanks her for her time, and then excuses the pair of them. Damian looks so distressed that  _Alfred_  looks horrified when he sees him, glancing between the two of them as they return.

“Is everything alright...?”

“Just fine,” Bruce says, resting his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Things went well. The boys?”

“Waiting outside,” Alfred says. “Finished a few minutes ago.”

“Then let's go see them.”

Three Wayne boys, Bruce tries to remind himself, is better than just one.

Even if it isn’t four.


	24. Chapter 24

Damian stops being sad the moment they leave the courthouse. There’s a spring in his step as they walk, and he immediately twists around to look up at Bruce, looking smug.

“I think I did well, did I not, father?”

“You did well,” Bruce admits. “The moment she looked at you I think I stopped breathing, though.”

Dick’s waving him over, leaning up against his car with everyone else.

“Dinner?” He asks the moment they’re in earshot.

“Dinner,” Alfred confirms. “I’ve already prepared all your favorites.”

Bruce’s phone chimes, and he pulls it out to find a single text from Slade.

 **Slade Wilson:** Congratulations.

Bruce tucks it away without responding. He’s probably already back at home.

“So?” Alfred says. “What did you end up going with?”

Bruce is torn between excitement and dread. It’s hard feeling so much excitement while also feeling like he’s being kicked in the gut.

“Barb and I debated back and forth a bit,” Tim says. “I ended up moving Drake into the middle and ditching my old middle name, which I think has been spoken aloud exactly once in human history.”

“Twice,” Bruce says. “I told Damian when he asked.”

“I have a middle name now,” Damian says, puffing out his chest proudly, as if he’s declaring he’s just been nominated for the Nobel prize. “Ask me what it is.”

A quick glance gets exchanged, and Jason does the honors.

“What’s your middle name?”

“Thomas,” Damian says. “Damian Thomas Wayne.”

“Ohhh, Thomas,” Jason says. “Should have seen that coming.”

“Too predictable?” Bruce asks.

“Very  _you_ , Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “You were saying about your name, Master Timothy?”

Bruce hasn’t failed to miss that Damian interrupted, but no one seems to mind all that much.

Tim holds out his paperwork.

“Timothy Drake Wayne-Gordon,” he says. “Which is like... six mouthfuls.”

“I went with Gordon-Wayne,” Barbara says, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “Think of all the business cards I have to redo.”

“You can bill me,” Bruce says. “I’ll happily pay for your new cards.”

“Good,” she says. “I’ll get the ones with the gold trim then.”

Bruce rolls his eyes and Tim laughs.

“And you?” Alfred asks, turning to Dick, who holds up his own.

“Grayson-Wayne,” Dick says. “Wayne-Grayson sounded weird, and Tim has Drake coming first anyway.”

Bruce doesn’t want to keep going. He wants the conversation to end right there, on a nice happy note. But Alfred’s already turning towards Jason, already opening his mouth to ask the question.

“And what did you settle on, Master Jason?”

“You can stop sulking, Bruce,” he says, holding up his own.

There, in neat handwriting, is Jason’s new name.

Jason Peter Wilson-Wayne.

Wilson-Wayne.

Not just Wilson.

Bruce’s brain feels like it’s short circuiting.

“Just wait,” Barbara says. “My dad is going to have a stroke when he finds out his son-in-law’s brother is a  _Wilson_. He has a hard enough time knowing that Slade’s still breathing Gotham’s air.”

Bruce’s brain still isn’t quite rebooted. He’s still trying to process the  _Wayne_  in Jason’s name. He’s spent every moment since it came up trying not to dwell on the Wilson, and now there’s a _Wayne_ right alongside it.

Slade’s  _congratulations_  text suddenly makes him feel a lot less bitter.

“I think I broke him,” Jason says.

Dick and Tim lean in to stare at him. Damian gawks up.

“You broke Father!” Damian protests.

“I’m not broken,” Bruce says. “Just, hold on.”

He’s starting to cry. He  _knows_  he’s starting to cry, and he absolutely does not want to be caught crying in the courthouse parking lot. He doesn’t cry. He hasn’t cried in years. And he doesn’t want the boys-

“Oh shit,” Dick says. “You did break him.”

Alfred scoffs at the language.

“Master Bruce is simply overwhelmed. This is a big moment for all of you.”

Bruce isn’t  _entirely_  sure who starts it. It’s either Jason or Dick, stepping forward to pull him into a hug. And then there’s another set of arms, and another, and Damian trapped in the middle with only a little bit of protesting, his arms around Bruce’s waist.

Bruce lets himself cry.


	25. Chapter 25

Bruce feels like he’s floating through the rest of the evening. Every time he starts coming back to earth, his brain repeats back  _Dick Grayson-Wayne, Jason Wilson-Wayne, Tim Wayne-Gordon, and Damien Wayne_ and he’s flying again.

Everyone stays for dinner, and Alfred is good to his word. Bruce has a bit of everything and enjoys everything he eats.

He’s happy when the family heads down into the cave. There’s some pretense about  _training_ , but Bruce suspects it’s more  _sitting down and talking without adults_.

He’s fine with letting them talk. As long as Damian isn’t wandering around alone, things will be fine.

Bruce retires out to the backyard. Slade’s sitting in the darkness, barely visible in the light from the dining room, and the only  _real_  sign of his presence is the red tip of his cigar.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Bruce says. “Drink?”

He’s brought a bottle of whiskey, complete with two glasses, and Slade gestures to the table.

“I was in the army, Bruce,” Slade says. “Everyone smoked.”

“I meant  _now_ ,” Bruce says, pouring some whiskey into each glass.

“I smoke for the flavor,” Slade says. “Same reason I drink. Nicotine burns through me like it’s nothing, just like alcohol does.”

Bruce had never really thought about it before, but now that he has, he sees why. Slade’s regeneration has to keep him in tip top shape.

“Can’t say I think it’s a bad thing,” Bruce says, picking up his glass with one hand. “I’d rather not get drunk at all.”

“You miss it when you can’t,” Slade says, holding up his glass.

Bruce catches the cue, clinking his glass against Slade’s own with an automatic  _cheers_ , and then takes a sip.

He’s brought out a nice expensive bottle for a reason, after all.

“It was a good day,” Bruce says. “Good week, even.”

“For everyone,” Slade says. “You didn’t hear it from me, but Jason was absolutely losing it earlier. Absolutely beating himself up. You had good timing.”

Bruce turns his attention to Slade, confused.

“Why?”

He doesn’t get it. There’s something he’s missing, confused, and in the low light Slade seems to miss it, focused on his drink.

“Mmm, don’t know if he told you, but at one point he was considering just Wilson.”

Bruce winces.

“He told me.”

“Then he started waffling on if he’d been overly harsh, and we talked it out, and he decided on the whole Wilson-Wayne thing-”

Bruce isn’t quite over that. The fact that his name is just  _stuck on_  the end of Slade's.

“-and then after you talked, he was just tearing himself up over the fact that he ever considered  _not_  including your name.”

After their talk.

Bruce considers drowning the rest of the glass. It takes all his self control to speak.

“We didn’t talk,” Bruce says. His tongue feels like lead. He’s trying to scrape back through everything he’s said all day. Every interaction. Jason spent the whole day ignoring him, didn’t he?

Even in the poor lighting, he can see the surprise on Slade’s face, and he pauses for a moment before taking the cigar, resting it on the ash tray. Bruce isn’t even sure where the ash tray  _came_  from, but he’s happy it’s there.

“You didn’t talk,” Slade says.

“We didn’t talk,” Bruce confirms.

Slade lets out a small strangled noise and downs the rest of his drink. It’s an entirely pointless gesture, but Bruce gets the idea and does the same.

The whiskey burns on its way down, and Bruce considers if he’s going to need to chug the rest of the bottle. He’s expecting the worst.

He’s not even sure what the  _worst_  is, but he’s afraid of it anyway.

“Did you or did you not say that making Jason into Batman was a good choice, and then gush about how he’s earned people’s love and respect as Jason  _and_  as Batman?”

Bruce rakes his memory.

Oh.

He  _did_  say that. He said that to Damian, down in the cave.

He remembers the sound of the door to the cave opening. He remembers it being left open. The conclusion isn’t hard to come to: Jason started to come down, heard him talking to Damian, and listened in.

“To Damian,” Bruce says. “I didn’t realize Jason was there.”

Slade grunts.

Bruce feels like his brain is shutting down. He’s trying to rewind his memory, to walk through each and every thing he said. What  _exactly_  had he said? What had Damian said in response? What-

“Bruce,” Slade says, and Bruce feels Slade grab the front of his shirt, pulling him over. “Eyes on me. Focus. Did you say it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you mean it?”

“Yes.”

Slade releases him, and Bruce sags back, the momentary panic back in place.

“Then you’re fine,” Slade says. “Jason was touched. He felt happy you thought those things. All this means is you need to do better at  _telling_  your kids these things, rather than letting them guess.”

Bruce gets himself another glass of whiskey, just to replace the first. The panic’s gone, but the sensation's still there, lingering.

“I swear to god,” Slade mutters, getting himself his own glass. “You’re the only man in the world who can fistfight Killer Croc without batting an eye, but then someone asks you what your kids' favorite color is and you freak out.”

“Don’t remind me,” Bruce says. “I have no idea.”

“Jason likes red,” Slade says without missing a beat. “Dick’s big on blues. Tim changes his favorite color every time you blink your eyes, so don’t bother guessing.”

Bruce groans and sags back in his chair.

“Stop beating yourself up,” Slade says. “You’re trying.”

“And you’re doing a better job,” Bruce says. “You haven’t even-”

“You’re their  _dad_ ,” Slade says pointedly. “Sure, you’re emotionally constipated at times, but you’re  _trying_. You’re doing better. It’s easy for me, sitting on the outside, to see all this stuff. Harder when you’re in the thick of it.”

Bruce somehow finds a way to sag deeper into his chair.

“Honestly, Bruce,” Slade says. “He was already going to go with Wilson-Wayne, and he was already feeling guilty. Just  _talk to him_. Ease your conscience if it bothers you that much.”

Bruce can’t help but feel like his life was a lot simpler when he spent his nights running around Gotham stopping crime rather than having to talk to people. There was a simplicity to it. The criminal was either caught or not caught.

Not so much when it comes to communication.

“Good choice, by the way,” Slade says, “on Damian’s name.”

“Thomas,” Bruce says. “He doesn’t even know who that is.”

“But he will,” Slade says. “You’ll tell him all about it.”

Bruce doesn’t know what to say to that, so instead he says nothing. He leans back in his seat, staring up at the stars, drink in hand, content, at least for a moment, that things are alright.


	26. Chapter 26

The biggest surprise isn’t that Damian ends up convincing Jason to train him.

The biggest surprise is that Jason manages to hold out a whole five days.

Damian’s fourth day feels almost subdued. Jason goes to work. Tim and Dick go back to their lives. Damian spends the entire day pestering Slade to train him until he finally gives in, unable to do anything else without having Damian in his space, asking about his swords.

Slade doesn’t go easy on him. By the time they’re finished, Damian practically has to crawl up the stairs, soaked with sweat and exhausted. Slade doesn’t look like he’s done anything more physically involved than reading a book.

“Why do you keep him around, father?” Damian asks, sulking over dinner.

“For the banter, mostly,” Slade says without missing a beat.

Damian sulks harder.

Damian never ends up getting left alone for long.  _Someone_  is always with him. Alfred recruits him to help with the dishes while Bruce does some work. Slade pops in to steal him from Alfred by making Damian run an obstacle course.

By the time it’s time for Damian to sleep, he’s so exhausted he’s unconscious before his head hits the pillow.

Bruce tucks him in and goes back to his work.

He spends most of the night coordinating the bats. Almost everyone moves  _mostly_  independently, but Bruce operates as their coordinator. He keeps in touch with Dick on the happenings in Bludhaven. He makes sure Jason and Slade keep to their patrol routes. And he works with Oracle and Azrael to make sure that all five of the people patrolling the city are working different areas, rather than tripping over each other.

Azrael isn’t one of the family, but that hasn’t stopped them from working with him. There’s something deeply, obviously wrong with him, something beyond what Bruce is able to deal with. So they keep him at arm's length, content to let him operate under supervision.

He wishes there was an easier way, but Azrael never gets close enough for them to  _really_  get to the bottom of things. He keeps them at arm's length as much as they do to him.

“So,” Barbara says through the coms during a slot period. “That all-hands meeting?”

In all their years working together, they’ve never had a  _real_  all-hands meeting. There’re always a few people left out, getting caught up once things are over. They don’t want to leave Gotham entirely undefended. But Barbara (and Tim and Dick for that matter) have been pushing the issue more and more.

“Were you including Azrael?”

“He’s been working with us for years, so I’ve been including him.”

“I’m not revealing our identities to him unless I can actually vet him in  _person_.”

“We know  _him_ ,” Barbara protests.

“Knowing who he is doesn’t change things,” Bruce says. “Not in a matter of life and death.”

“Then ask him to meet,” Barbara says. “Strap on the old cowl and go for a run.”

Bruce taps his fingers against the center console.

“Later,” he finally says.

“By the end of the week,” Barbara says. “If you put this off any longer...”

“I understand,” Bruce says. “By the end of the week.”

Barbara sends him to bed when the patrols are over, promising to make sure everyone gets back safe.

On the fifth day, Dick shows up. He ends up taking Damian out to a movie, giving Bruce a pointed glance before sliding his eyes over to Jason. Bruce knows what that means: the universal sign of  _you are alone, now talk to him_.

Slade finds a convenient excuse to go pick up some gear from Lucius and heads out.

Bruce clears his throat, but Jason beats him to it.

“Everyone cleared out,” Jason says. “Which means they’re trying to get us to talk.”

“Seems to be the idea,” Bruce agrees.

They end up in the library. There're shelves on every wall, filled with old hardback books, and Jason’s made himself a little nook in one corner. A big armchair. A side table covered in coasters he keeps forgetting to clear away. There’s a book titled  _Learn Arabic_  there when they enter, but Jason clears it away before settling in.

Bruce pulls a chair over.

“So,” Bruce says. “I-”

“Slade already told me he told you,” Jason says. “That there was a... misunderstanding.  _I_  thought it would be implied you hadn’t... directly said anything.”

Bruce winces. It’s only  _implied_  because he’s so awful about communicating.

“I’m not-”

“I know,” Jason says, cutting him off. “You don’t have to... to explain this stuff to me. I know you’d rather pull your own teeth out than talk about how you feel.”

Bruce opens his mouth to protest, but the protest dies on his lips.

“I am... trying to do better on that front.”

“I know,” Jason says. “Which is the only reason I even came back rather than staying at my apartment.  _Someone_  has to supervise you with the kid.”

“He likes you,” Bruce points out. “And Slade, for that matter.”

“‘Course he likes Slade,” Jason says, pulling a leg up onto the seat. In the back of his head, Bruce can hear Alfred complaining about feet on the furniture. “What’s not to like?”

“The fact that Slade killed a bunch of people in front of him?” Bruce considers that a pretty big  _thing not to like_.

“He didn’t mind,” Jason says, with all the certainty in the world. “Not really. He hated it there by the end. He’s got all these twisted nostalgic memories of his time with gramps, but by the end of it, Ra’s was a hollow shell who couldn’t manage to string two words together. Couldn’t even recognize Damian. So it was just a bunch of people Damian didn’t like who demanded a lot of him. He still got training, but that was it. Says something about the situation when  _Ra’s al Ghul_  is loving in comparison.”

Bruce feels ill thinking about it. Damian, simultaneously alone and surrounded by people. People who don’t care about him, who treat him like another foot soldier. Ra’s, unable to even remember who he is.

Bruce doesn’t believe in murder, but a part of him feels like what Slade did was a mercy. Ra’s was already dead a long, long time ago.

“Do you know what happened to Talia’s body...?” Bruce asks. Slade and him have clearly talked about things.

“Left behind,” Jason says. “Still intact, if that’s what you’re worried about, but there’s no way to bring her back with the Lazar-”

“I wouldn’t,” Bruce interrupts. “Never. It... changes who you are. I wouldn’t want that.” Maybe if she’d been saved immediately.  _Maybe_. But it’s been years, and the more the pit has to bring back, the more it changes along the way.

Healing a knife wound is one thing. Restoring a rotting corpse is something else entirely.

“I was just thinking about burying her,” Bruce says. “A grave. To give Damian some... some closure.”

“Don’t,” Jason says. “Not without the body.”

That would mean finding the body, and the odds of that are poor. It’s probably long since gone, destroyed with the rest of the base. But he knows why Jason stands so firm on that, and he won’t argue.

“Either way,” Jason says, eager to change the subject, “the point is that he’s happier here. Even if he’s having a hard time showing it. He’s got people he likes, and those people treat him like a person, and that’s really all he’s asking.”

“That and a mantle,” Bruce says with a small laugh. Jason joins in, and that feels good in itself.

“That and a mantle,” Jason agrees. “I don’t think he’s going to stop asking until I say yes.”

“Probably not, no,” Bruce says. “If you want, I can sit him down and tell him he needs to cut it out.”

“Don’t bother,” Jason says. “Tim and Dick have already been getting on my case about taking on my own pupil. Might as well be him.”

Bruce’s eyebrows shoot up so fast they almost fly off his face.

“Really?”

“Really, Bruce,” Jason says. “Saves me half the work, doesn’t it? He’s already got training. Sure, he’s  _young_ , but the way I figure it, he’s going to start sneaking out if someone doesn’t start taking him with them soon.”

“He’s in a room with shatter-proof windows,” Bruce says. “They could take a sniper shot without issue.”

“If you think that would stop him,” Jason says, “then you’re dumber than a box of rocks.”

“I’d like to believe that all my security could stop a twelve year old from leaving the house.”

Jason makes a very skeptical  _hmmmm_  in response.

“If you’re going to tell him,” Bruce says. “Maybe tomorrow night? And then the day after...” Bruce mentally runs through his schedule. “The day after I need to talk to Azrael.”

“Wearing the suit?”

“Wearing the suit,” Bruce confirms.

“He’s never liked me as much as he liked you,” Jason says.

“He’s the only one.”

Jason glances away, but his ears go pink at the compliment.

“He’s not the  _only_  one,” Jason protests. “I’m pretty sure Gotham’s entire upper crust prefers the old Batman.”

“Considering they have private security,” Bruce says, “I don’t think their opinion counts as much as the people who are  _actually_  in need of help.”

“A Batman for the rich,” Jason says, “and a Batman for the poor.”

“Only one Batman,” Bruce says. “For the people.”

Jason goes even pinker.


	27. Chapter 27

They’re eating breakfast when Damian poses a question. For the most part, Damian hasn’t really  _asked_  many questions. He’s made demands, and issued orders, but he doesn’t  _ask_  all that much. Bruce suspects he probably wasn’t supposed to question Ra’s, but it’s hard to tell what’s a product of his upbringing and what’s just a matter of him still adjusting to the situation.

“What do they actually  _do_?” Damian asks, without bothering to give any sort of context for who  _they_  is.

“Who?”

“I know what Jason does,” Damian says, turning to squint at the empty spot at the table. Jason’s already gone, left for work, leaving Slade alone on his end of the table. “But I don’t know about Tim or Dick.”

Bruce supposes they haven’t talked about them all that much. It’s a blind spot, he supposes, because he knows all  _about_  Tim and Dick, and Damian barely knows them at all.

“Dick works for the police-”

“He’s a  _police officer_?” Damian says, making no attempt to disguise the horror in his voice.

“-With Bludhaven’s police department,” Bruce finishes. “He wanted to be independent, and this is his way of doing that. Most of the skills are shared, and he’s good at his job.”

“Is he...” Damian pauses, squinting up at Bruce. “Married?”

“No,” Bruce says. “If he’s dating someone at all right now, I haven’t heard of it.”

He pauses, and then turns his head to Slade, half expecting a laugh or some comment.

“Don’t look at me,” Slade says, popping a bit of bacon into his mouth. “Even if Dick  _had_  told me about a relationship in confidence, I wouldn't be passing it on.”

Bruce  _hmmms_.

“And Tim?”

“Married to Barbara,” Bruce says. “I have the wedding album in my office.”

“And his job?”

“Teacher,” Bruce replies. “At his old school.”

Damian makes a face, looking somehow even  _more_  offended.

“A  _teacher_?”

“And Barbara’s an administrator at Gotham university,” Bruce adds. “Although she’s considering going back to school for a criminology degree.”

Damian  _hmmms_  pointedly.

“I will remember, father.”

What else? He feels like there’s so much Damian doesn’t know about things, and he has no idea where to start. School. Maybe school?

“Maybe we should drop by the academy and see what can be done about that. They’ll need to... to test you, I guess. To figure out how you'll fit into the system.”

Damian looks horrified.

“An  _academy_ , father? I had the very best private tutors. Please do not think that the league allowed that to lapse in any way.”

“Your education is, by its very nature, going to be spotty. It would be good for you to be around ch- people your own age.”

Damian doesn’t miss his slip of the tongue, eyes narrowing.

“I do not need to go to an  _academy_ ,” Damian protests.

“Then prove it,” Bruce says. “We’ll take you to the academy. They’ll set things up. And then you can  _prove_  you’re beyond what they can offer.”

Bruce suspects that Damian’s education could be described as  _spotty_  at absolute best. Some things the league would have cared about. Other things he suspects not at all. Better to have an expert handle it and get a feel for what Damian needs.

Bruce suspects the answer is  _more tutors_ , but it isn’t the answer he actually  _wants_. The answer he  _wants_ is ‘we’ll put him in with kids his own age so he can have something roughly approximating a childhood’.

Bruce just knows it isn’t going to happen.

He doesn’t call ahead, well aware that there’s always someone on hand to handle parents or admissions, and goes himself, leaving Alfred to his own work. It’s a father-son trip, with Damian in the passenger seat for once.

He’s still glued to the window, watching Gotham go by.

Every single one of his sons has gone through Robinson Academy at some point or another, and he sees no reason to break with tradition. He likes the security they offer--discrete but solid--and the privacy. The academy hosts the children of Gotham’s elite, and they know a thing or two about avoiding the press or attention. The confidentiality agreements are a mile wide and rock solid, just the way Bruce likes them.

He parks in the  _prospective student_  parking, climbing out at the same time Damian does. Someone in the office is already getting up, having spotted him pulling in.

“Miss Lum,” Bruce says, offering his hand, which the woman takes with a smile. She’s the picture of professionalism, and someone he’s met more than enough times to warrant a bit of familiarity.

“Mr. Wayne,” she says. “It’s been a while. And who’s this?”

She turns her attention to Damian, who’s standing perfectly still at Bruce’s side. He doesn’t answer, his eyes flicking up to Bruce’s, clearly unsure how Bruce expects him to answer.

“My son, Damian,” Bruce says, resting a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “He was home schooled, and his education's been a bit spotty, so I thought the academy would be a good fit for him. I understand he likely won’t be able to be formally enrolled until the new school year starts, but I thought it would be good to get the process rolling.”

Miss Lum keeps her composure, her eyes focused on Damian, watching his reactions. He keeps a straight face, rather than showing his annoyance, which seems to convince her that there’s nothing to worry about.

“Of course,” she says, gesturing for them to come in. “I want to say I didn’t know that you had a son, but then I  _also_  didn’t know you were related to Mr. Drake.”

She pauses for only a moment, before giving them a smile as she waves them into her office.

“Wayne-Gordon now. He only just finished up the paperwork. Had to tell his students they could keep calling him Mr. Drake, because they were all _devastated_  by the idea he wasn’t going to let them. I’m not sure half of them even know his first name.”

“Tim was concerned he’d have trouble getting a job on his own merits if people knew who he was,” Bruce says, sliding into the offered chair. “Not as much of a problem anymore.”

“No, not as much. He’s doing very well here. His students love him.” She pauses, looking Damian up and down. “Maybe you’ll even end up in his class.”

Damian doesn’t  _visibly_  react, but the tiny twitch makes his thoughts on that pretty clear.

“So!” She says. “I can set up placement testing for later this week. Normally there’s a lot more paperwork, but you’ve already enrolled three boys, so it’s all more or less the same you’ve already done.”

She’s all too willing to skip over most of the process. Bruce is  _significant_  contributor to the school, and he’s fairly sure he could parade an entire pack of orphans in and get them all enrolled without anyone batting an eye.

Damian sits quietly, observing the whole process, and when they’re finished what little paperwork needs to be done, Miss Lum gives him a bright smile.

“Hopefully we’ll be seeing you around the school before too long!” She says, and Damian gives her a glowing smile right back.

“I look forward to it!”

Miss Lum looks confused, and Bruce asks her a question to draw her attention away from Damian’s obviously forced smile.

School’s letting out by the time they’re finishing up, and Bruce isn’t surprised when Tim slides his way into the office.

“Bruce!” He says, obviously confused, and then glances down at Damian. “Wait, hold on, are we enrolling him? Already?!”

“He needs testing,” Bruce says. “So we know what areas he’s lacking in. Then we can get tutoring for those things so he’s ready to go for the new school year.”

“The sooner the better,” Damian says, even though he clearly doesn’t believe it.

“I was hoping you could drop Damian off at the manor?” Bruce asks. “I have an appointment to get to.”

He’s sure Tim knows exactly what his appointment is, but Damian doesn’t, and he scowls a bit.

“Sure,” Tim says. “I was going to drop by anyway. Had something for Jason.”

Bruce says his goodbyes to Miss Lum as Tim guides Damian out, promising to show him his car. Damian does  _not_  look impressed, and Bruce doesn’t blame him.


	28. Chapter 28

The office is tucked at the very back of an office park, quiet and unassuming. There is absolutely  _nothing_  interesting about it, which Bruce is pretty sure is by design.

Anything else would raise questions. But this doesn’t. It raises  _nothing_. He’s sure thousands of people have walked past the office without even batting an eye. He’s pretty sure even the people who work in the offices on either side of his destination don’t even pay attention to it.

The only sign it’s even occupied is the name on the nameplate. Just a name. Not a job, or a title, or a purpose.

_V. Bryndisarson_

Bruce knocks once and lets himself in. He has a routine, and he rarely deviates from it.

Because, like it or not, the office is familiar. And in a strange way? It feels  _safe_.

It’s not safe in the physical sense. The frosted glass of the window isn’t bullet proof. The door couldn’t hold up to a good body check. But it’s safe in another way. It  _feels_  safe.

It feels like no matter what he says, no one’s going to hold it against him. It feels like no matter what he confesses to, it won’t change anyone’s view of Bruce Wayne, or of Batman.

“Valli,” he says, taking the mug of coffee that’s already being offered to him. “How are things with you?”

“Can’t complain,” Valli says, taking his usual seat.

He’s older than Bruce by a bit more than a decade, the blond of his hair already starting to give way to grey. Between the two of them, Bruce isn’t sure they could find someone who contrasts with him more harshly. Valli is slim and fair, the kind of person who couldn’t do a single push up. He’s soft spoken, and not so much  _slow to anger_ as  _impossible to anger_.

Bruce has never seen him angry. Upset at times, but never  _angry_.

He also has a frankly  _alarming_  level of control over his emotions, and even more than that: a clear  _understanding_  of them.

Bruce is well aware he does not.

“You have that look,” Valli says with a small smile. “The look that says  _something has gone horribly wrong_. Not  _too_  wrong at least, or else you probably wouldn’t be here. Was it the meeting?”

“It didn’t happen,” Bruce says. “Something else did.”

He takes a seat and drinks his coffee just to give his mouth something to do that doesn’t involve having to explain his week.

But eventually he has to stop, and has to  _explain_ , and he’s not looking forward to it.

“So?” Valli prompts him when Bruce can no longer pretend he cares about the coffee in his mug.

“I have a son.”

“Last I checked,” Valli says, “you have three.”

Bruce smiles, despite the seriousness of the situation.

“Four,” Bruce says. “The fourth... arrived on my doorstep, more or less. A few days ago.”

Valli doesn’t need to ask the obvious  _did you not know about them?_ He knows already.

“The mother...?”

“Talia,” Bruce says. Valli makes a face at all the implications that come with that.

“How’s he adjusting?”

He likes that about Valli. That he  _cares_. Not just about Bruce, his patient, but about all the parts of his life. It feels genuine. Bruce is pretty sure it is.

“Better than I thought,” Bruce says. “But he has a... a lot. A lot of adjustment. The life he had is... completely alien to us.”

“Talia was the league, wasn’t she? That was...”

Valli pauses for a moment, clearly thinking.

“...The ninjas?”

Bruce knows that Valli believes him, but even still there’s still a level of  _is this even real_  whenever Bruce says anything. Bruce’s life is as alien to Valli as Damian’s is to Bruce.

“The ninjas,” Bruce confirms. “But from what I understand, they aren’t really... around anymore.”

He doesn’t want to get into it. Valli knows things, but he doesn’t need all the details.

“How are the boys taking it?”

“Better than I thought,” Bruce admits. “I expected... reluctance. Instead, they all seem to be taking it pretty well. Jason is...”

He smiles, despite himself.

“The perfect big brother. They have... banter. Jason teases him. I think Damian  _likes_  being teased.”

“People underestimate that,” Valli says. “Having camaraderie with a sibling. People think that being a sibling means being there for them, and it is... but it also means having a level of comfort with them. Being willing to poke fun. It’s good they have that already.”

Bruce feels himself relax ever so slightly. Every time Valli reminds him that something is  _normal_ , he feels relief. His life is so far from normal that he feels distinctly out of touch with it at times.

“And you?”

“Me?”

“You’ve said he’s adjusting well. You’ve said he’s getting along with his brothers. I can safely assume he’s getting along just fine with Mr. Pennyworth and Mr. Wilson, or you’d have brought it up. What you haven’t mentioned are  _your_  feelings.”

His feelings.  _His_  feelings are always so much harder to talk about than everyone else's.

“He looks like me,” Bruce says. “His mother’s eyes. A bit darker skin. Especially...” He gestures to himself. “Especially now. But other than that? The same hair. The same face. Alfred says he’s the spitting image of me at that age.”

“And acts?”

“Angry. More angry than I was. We both... He lost his mother. I lost my parents. But he lost his mother years ago, and his grandfather... years ago, more or less. He’s been alone since then. I contracted, and it seems like he’s expanded. Asserting himself. Making people recognize him for who he is, rather than trying to vanish.”

The words come so much easier than they did years ago.

“And are you recognizing him?”

“Trying,” Bruce says. “I want to say that he’s a difficult child, but he’s not. Not really. Sometimes he does things--he stole a knife from the store when we went--but they’re not... They’re  _understandable_. It’s easy to trace back the things he does and understand why he does them, and I feel like if I just tried a bit harder, I’d be able to spot things before they happen.”

“But you’re trying,” Valli says, and Bruce hesitates before nodding.

“Yes,” he says. “I’m trying. It’s just a lot to manage at once.”

He tells Valli about the names. About Dick’s desire to talk to his brothers before making any commitment. About Tim’s easy acceptance. About  _Jason Wilson_  and about  _Jason Wilson-Wayne._ About Damian  _Thomas_  Wayne. 

The session's almost over and Bruce feels like he’s barely scratched the surface.

“You’ve had a long week,” Valli says. “Your busiest in a long while. But we should talk about next steps. Are you still planning to have your all-hands meeting?”

He’s been hearing about the meeting from all sides, and Valli knows it. Dick wants it. Tim and Barbara want it. He’s pretty sure, even if he hasn’t said it, that Jason wants it. Especially now.

“Soon,” Bruce says. “I’m supposed to talk to Azrael tomorrow. And when that’s handled, probably meeting everyone the next day.”

He’s met the  _next generation_  only in passing. He doesn’t know their real names. It’s intentional, by design, and meeting them for real--really taking them in as part of the family--feels like a step too far.

He tells Valli as much, and feels himself relax when Valli nods.

“Handing things off is always hard,” Valli says. “You’ve retired from the job, but that doesn’t mean you’ve stepped away from it. The fact that you were  _forced_  to retire, rather than retiring of your own free will is a factor. So it’s understandable that taking another step towards  _true_  retirement would sting.”

True retirement.

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Bruce says quietly. “I wish I was still out there.”

“One day you would have had to,” Valli says. “Everyone does. One day you have to move on. You hand it down to the next in line, and you trust that they’ll do it right. Whether that thing is a cowl, a company, or a family doesn’t change that.”

Bruce wipes at his eyes, sagging back into his chair. He’s heard it before. It isn’t the first time they’ve talked about it. But the hurt feels fresh and new every time, no matter how many times he hears it.


	29. Chapter 29

Bruce spends the evening with Damian, and after a good amount of pestering it ends up being a  _training_  evening. He runs Damian through his standard exercises, testing the boy’s abilities. He’s had good instructors, but at times he’s overly aggressive. Too eager to prove himself.

He’s a lot like Jason was, which makes it that much easier. Bruce has learned from his mistakes since then. He knows better how to deal with it.

Slade arrives after an hour, and Bruce trades off with him. He settles back, watching the two of them spar, letting himself just  _observe_. Damian’s smaller and more agile, and he uses those traits to his advantage. But he simply doesn’t have the years of experience that Slade has, let alone the enhanced strength and reflexes. 

Damian’s one great victory is when he tries a jump kick, Slade grabs his ankle, and Damian uses the change in momentum to spin his other leg up and around, catching Slade in the face.

It’s not enough to get Slade to release him, but it  _is_  enough to land a blow, and that’s a victory in itself.

“What the hell, you started without me?” Jason asks as he comes down the stairs. He looks tired, which is never a good way to start patrol, but almost an inevitability.

“What was it this time?” Slade asks in return, disarming Damian before he can attempt to keep the sword he’s been given.

“Someone using drugs in the shelter bathroom,” Jason says. “Had to talk them out of using the rest and get them to hand it over. But we’ve got more important stuff.”

The sun’s already down, which means  _more important stuff_  means either a message from the others, or something big happening. Black Mask’s been quiet as of late, and that’s where Bruce is laying his bets.

“What’ve we got?” Slade asks, already pulling on the under-layer of his armor.

Damian scowls at him, jealousy obvious.

“Azrael contacted me directly,” Jason says. “Not through usual comms. He said he needed to speak directly to..”

Jason rolls his eyes.

“The  _real_  Batman.”

Bruce feels like, of the entire city, the only person who still takes issue with Jason is Azrael.

“Did you-”

“Yes,” Jason says. “But he’s insistent.”

Bruce exchanges a quick glance with Slade.

“You were going to meet him anyway,” Slade points out. “Might as well be now if he’s got something to say.”

Damian looks outraged.

“You can’t  _all_  leave,” he says. “Take me with you.”

“We’re going to meet a man who doesn’t know our identities about something dangerous,” Bruce says. “This is  _not_  an ideal first mission. You don’t even have a suit.”

“I can take-”

“No,” Bruce says, eyes flicking to the display cases. “None of those suits will fit you. You need a suit that  _actually_  fits. Let us handle this, Damian.”

He’s not leaving things to chance, hitting the call button to let Alfred knows he’s needed, and only starting to pull on his armor when Damian’s been whisked away, sulking and unhappy.

He hasn’t worn the suit in months, but it still fits. It feels like slipping on an old skin, well worn and comfortable.

His suit’s similar enough to Jason’s own, but Jason’s has enough tweaks that they’re visually distinct. Maybe not at a distance, but close up it would be hard for anyone to mistake them.

Especially not side by side.

“Not often I see both of you suited up,” Slade says, reaching up to snap his helmet down. The Gotham Knight’s helmet hides his face entirely, and the twin glows that mimic eyes behind the faceplate do more to hide his identity than anything else possibly could.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t happen often,” Jason says, “because any time it does, it means something bad’s happening.”

They descend into the city as a pack, and for the first time in months, there are  _two_  Batmen.

They keep to the rooftops, picking their way across the city as they go. So early in the night, crime seems minimal, and Bruce isn’t all that surprised when their meeting point is atop a church. Azrael’s a familiar enough sight for Gotham, and he raises no eyebrows as he stands on the edge of the roof, staring down into the city.

He turns when they hit the rooftop, stepping away from the edge.

Bruce isn’t surprised when Azrael goes down on one knee in front of him, his head hung. He’s practically  _groveling_ , like a knight towards his king. It seems unwarranted and unearned. He’s not even Batman anymore, which makes it that much worse.

“Azrael,” Bruce says. “You had news?”

“I seek guidance,” he says.

Bruce can’t hear it, but he can  _imagine_  Slade’s tired sigh beside him.

“Stand up,” Slade says. “You shouldn’t be groveling.”

Azrael doesn’t move right  _away_ , but Bruce nods and he eventually stands.

“Just tell us what’s happening,” Bruce says. His throat’s hurting already. Did he really manage to do this voice for  _years_? It feels so difficult now.

“The Order has gone silent,” Azrael says. “I have received no orders.”

Bruce knows enough about the Order to know how unusual that is. They puppet Azrael through each night, and the Order is the largest reason that Azrael still stands alone, outside the family. The Order has unclear motivations at best, and Bruce’s attempts to discern them failed. Even if they've been an ally in the past, Bruce has no intention of opening up to people who he’s never even met.

“How long?” Jason asks.

“They have said nothing tonight, or the night before. They checked in to give me my orders the night before that, but they never told me that my work was done.”

The routine’s clear enough. Check in, complete orders, sign off. But something interrupted it.

“Do you know where they’re headquartered?” Slade asks, and Azrael shakes his head.

“The Order keeps its secrets.”

Bruce thinks things would be a lot easier if they didn’t.

“How  _exactly_  do you get your orders?” Jason asks, and Azrael turns his face towards him, face impossible to read.

“I... hear them.”

“Hear them  _how_?”

Azrael offers a small shrug of his shoulders in response.

“The suit, probably,” Slade says. “There’s probably transmitters in it.”

Bruce has never given much thought to the suit. He knows that Azrael considers it some kind of holy relic, but Bruce has never managed to believe in that sort of thing.

“Could we trace them back to the source?”

“Only if they’re transmitting,” Jason says.

Azrael remains silent, observing the three of them as they discuss their options. It’s obvious what they need to try and do, but far less obvious as to how they’ll actually do it. But after a few minutes of quick conversation, they settle on a plan.

“We’ll fall back to a secondary base,” Bruce says. “If we check your suit, we may be able to trace back to the broadcast site and find out what’s happening.”

Azrael nods, and a part of Bruce--the paranoid part that he counts on to keep them all safe--wonders if that’s the plan. They can’t actually verify what Azrael is saying is the truth. All they can do is trust.

They fall back to an extra base. Bruce picks the one that’s already the most compromised, the one with no actual connection to any of the others. Even if Azrael does stab them in the back then and there, they can simply abandon it and move on.

It’s the same base Bruce was once held himself, but he’s been back several times, and it no longer bothers him. The layout's changed, the cells relocated, and little of what was once there remains.

Bruce knows what Azrael looks like. He knows who he is. And what he sees when Azrael peels off his suit, laying his sword to the side isn’t too far off what he saw in the GCPD file he borrowed.

Michael Lane. Discharged ex-cop. Lost his family, and then vanished into Gotham’s underbelly. There’s a huge, inexplicable gap, and Bruce only knows that the Order of Saint Dumas has something to do with it.

“Transmitter,” Jason says as he inspects the armor. “Multiple, actually. I’m going to check it with the computer and see what comes up.”

He strips a little transmitter out of the suit, walking over to the computer and leaving them behind.

Bruce can’t see Slade’s eye, but he  _knows_ , just from body language and instinct, that he’s inspecting Azrael where he sits, stripped down to under-armor. His eyes look sunken, and everything about him screams  _pushed to the limit_. It’s not that he’s unhealthy, because Azrael looks like he’s in top physical condition, but instead that he looks like he’s a man who’s done nothing other than patrol Gotham for... who knows how long.

“Do you... have a day job?” Bruce asks rather suddenly.

Azrael--or maybe he should start thinking of him as  _Michael_ \--stares up at him.

“No,” he says after a moment. “My duty is to Gotham, and Gotham alone.”

That only brings up more questions. Where is he living? What does he do during the day?

Slade goes to inspect the sword, but not before Azrael stops him.

“No,” he says. “You cannot touch it. Only the pure can wield the sword against evil. It will burn anyone else.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Slade says.

But he doesn’t just grab it. No, he pulls off his gauntlet, leaving bare flesh exposed as he picks up the sword.

There’s a  _sizzle_ , and the smell of cooking flesh. Slade doesn’t let go, inspecting the handle even as it burns him.

“S!” Jason yells from his place at the computer. “Stop cooking yourself, I can smell you from here.”

Slade finally puts the sword back down, shaking out his hand as the regeneration kicks in, pieces of dead, burnt flesh starting to flake off.

“Sword’s rigged,” he says. “Simple handshake protocol. Tries to contact something held by the wielder, and if it doesn’t get an answer, starts frying the person holding it.”

“It is magic,” Azrael says, but he doesn’t sound as sure as he has in the past.

Bruce suspects that’s because Slade hasn’t been struck by a bolt of lightning.

“Not magic,” Jason says, rolling his chair back towards them. “Technology. The suit's got transmitting functions, which seem to still be active. They should be accepting input, but it isn’t getting any. More interestingly, it’s not  _just_  receiving.”

“Let me guess,” Slade says. “It’s connecting to him?”

“I’d guess,” Jason says.

“He can wield the sword bare handed,” Bruce says. “Which means the sword isn’t connecting to the  _suit_. It’s connecting to him.”

Azrael is silent, staring up at them. Bruce doubts he knows any of this. He’s always spoken of prophecies and God and  _faith_. None of that lines up with  _your suit is made of technology_. None of that lines up with  _your sword isn’t magic_.

His silence is telling.

“I want to do a full body X-ray,” Jason says. “I know how to work it, before you ask.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Bruce says. “Will you?”

Azrael lets himself be led to the machine, too large and bulky to be moved when they’d emptied the base. He lets himself be laid back and slid into it. Lets them scan him.

“Oh,” Jason says. “That’s bad.”

Slade remains by Azrael as Bruce steps up to the screen to look.

It’s bad. Even with no real medical training, Bruce knows it’s bad. There’s a  _chip_  on Azrael’s brain, little wires spread up and into him. All of a sudden, all of Azrael’s talk of hearing the  _voice of god_  seems a lot more alarming and literal.

“They’ve been transmitting to him,” Bruce says. “The suit’s the receiver, and then...”

“And then he hears it,” Jason says.

Bruce feels sick. The whole idea of it feels too close to home. Something  _in his brain_ , twisting around his thoughts. Making him hear things that aren't there. Making him  _see_ things that aren't there.

“How do we stop it?” Bruce asks.

Jason reaches up, tapping the large square.

“Disable the chip,” he says. “I can think of a few ways, but Robin would probably have a better idea than stabbing it. We should tap him for this.”

Bruce is only too happy to go and call Tim. Only too happy to pull away. He’s waiting outside the base for Tim to arrive when Slade emerges from the elevator, stepping up to rest a hand on his shoulder.

“Go home, B,” Slade says quietly. “This is too close to home for you.”

“This is my job.”

“This  _was_  your job,” Slade says. His tone’s softer than usual. Less forceful. Bruce is pretty sure he’s trying to be nice, but it’s just making him feel worse.

“We need to find the order. We need to find out what's happening.”

“We will,” Slade says. “But probably not tonight. Stabilizing Azrael is higher priority. So go home, get some rest, and we’ll check back in.”

Bruce is being sent away. He doesn’t  _get_  sent away, but that’s what Slade’s doing.

“...Alright,” he finally says, and Slade claps him on the back.

“Say hi to the kid for me,” Slade says. “But don’t be out too late, you hear?”

Bruce manages a weak smile at Slade's attempt at humor and heads home.


	30. Chapter 30

When Bruce pulls into the cave and spots Alfred at the computer, he does  _not_  feel inspired. Alfred’s rarely at the computer anymore. Between Oracle and him, Alfred’s happily stepped out of the role, so seeing him back there raises a red flag in Bruce’s mint.

The red flag goes halfway down when he spots Damian running over to the car.

He hasn’t been gone all that long--maybe an hour--but the fact that Damian is up and hanging in the cave (even if he is supervised) rather than in bed makes Bruce frown as he pulls himself out of the car.

“Weren’t you supposed to be asleep?” Bruce asks, reaching up to pull the cowl back. It feels too tight on his face, too restricting.

Slipping into the suit feels like coming home. But  _staying_  in it feels wrong.

“I wanted to see you in your suit,” Damian says, looking him up and down. “Since you rarely wear it.”

“It’s nothing special,” Bruce says. “Jason’s is more up to date.” More bells and whistles.

Damian stares up at him, squinting. Bruce feels like he’s being  _scrutinized_ , which is a strange feeling when it’s by someone so young.

“What is wrong, father?”

Bruce can’t decide if his ability to hide his emotions is slipping, or if Damian’s simply  _very_  good at reading him.

“I’m fine,” Bruce says, starting to peel off the suit.

Damian doesn’t believe that for even a single second.

“If you were fine, father,” Damian says, “I would not be able to spot multiple signs of stress in your body language.”

He peels off the last bit of armor plating, setting it down to be cleaned later before turning back to Damian.

“It’s just been a stressful night. I’ll be fine after I sleep,” he says. It feels like a lie, even to him.

Damian looks  _concerned_. It’s a strange look, but it’s also very obvious, and he hesitates for a long moment.

“...I understand, father.”

Bruce winces, and after a moment bends down. He doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to lie. How many times did Damian have his concerns dismissed by members of the league?

“We just... found something else about Azrael which hit a bit close to home,” Bruce says. “The idea of someone... not having control of their own mind isn’t one I’m comfortable with.”

“Brainwashing?”

Bruce winces.

“Yes,” he says. He hopes Damian isn’t going to ask any more, but he does.

“Why?”

Alfred clears his throat behind them.

“Perhaps now would be a good time for bed,” Alfred says, and for a moment, Bruce lets himself consider taking it.

But he pushes it away. Everyone else knows. Everyone else is going to talk about it. It will absolutely come up, and Damian needs to know.

 _Everyone_  in the house needs to know. Everyone who’s close to him. They need to know what to watch for.

“It’s fine, Alfred,” Bruce says, standing up. He doesn’t go far, but he does take a seat at the computer, spinning the chair around. He wants to be seated. He’s already tired enough.

“A few years ago I was infected by...” Already he’s faltering. It’s hard to explain.  There’s so many factors. How technical does he want to get? “By an infection. A man-made one. The infection made the people infected become more and more like the Joker. Over time, they’d end up  _becoming_  him. I was infected, but we managed to halt the progress. Get it under control.”

Damian is inspecting him, and he’s making no attempt to hide it.

“Is that why you’re so pale?” Damian finally asks.

“Yes,” Bruce says. “And why there’s green in my eyes if you get real close. My hair’s a bit green normally, but I dye it to keep it from becoming too obvious.”

“But it’s gone?” Damian says, and just for a moment he looks almost nervous.

“No,” Bruce says. “It’s just stopped.”

Damian’s face falls.

“Right now, it isn’t getting any worse. I have it under control. But if something were to happen to push me past my limits--if I were exposed to fear toxin, or seriously injured, or anything like that--there’s a chance it could start up again. So we test regularly. But if you ever see me doing anything that you think is really strange--if you ever catch me smiling too widely, or laughing for no reason--you need to tell someone, alright? Slade, or the boys, or Alfred. But someone.”

Bruce feels Alfred’s hand rest on his shoulder, and knows who it is without even looking.

“I know this is quite alarming, Master Damian,” Alfred says, “but you don’t have anything to worry about. Master Bruce has been perfectly healthy for years, and he’ll be perfectly healthy for years to come. I imagine he simply wishes to explain to you why he retired from the position, and why tonight effected him as much as it did.”

Alfred doesn’t even know what  _happened_ , but he’s still supportive just the same. He can guess. He can imagine. He’s seen a lot, and few things surprise him anymore.

“So you’ll be fine?”

“I’ll be fine,” Bruce says. “I just... wanted to make sure you knew.”

Few things scare him more than the thought of losing his own grip. Of hurting his family without realizing it. Or worse: Hurting his family  _while_  realizing it, and not being able to stop himself.

It’s the stuff of nightmares.

“Is this why Jason avoids green?”

Bruce has  _absolutely_  no idea how Damian got that idea. It’s never come up, and if it’s true, it’s not something he ever noticed.

“No,” Bruce says. “Jason has his own reasons to hate the Joker, but those are his own. It... would probably be better not to ask right now.”

Or ever.

Bruce’s therapy sessions slowly shifted from once a week, to every other week, and then to once a month. There’s less to talk about usually. He’s in a good place.

Jason’s sessions remain firmly at once a week, and show no signs of changing.

Damian nods, understanding, and Bruce is sure he’ll try and figure it out on his own anyway.

“I think it’s probably time for bed,” Bruce says. “For both of us.”

“Yes, father,” Damian says without protest.

It dawns on Bruce all of a sudden what throws him off about Damian’s constant  _yes, father_. It’s not the father. It’s the tone. It’s the way he says it, mechanical and precise, and it’s so easy to shift it around.  _Yes, sir. Yes, grandfather._ It feels less like Damian’s actually answering the question, and more like he’s giving his boss the answer Damian hopes will get him in the least trouble.

The problem is that Bruce has no idea what to  _do_  with that. Knowing doesn’t make the feeling go away.

But eventually he decides that he can do nothing. Nothing he can say is going to change it right then. Pointing it out would just make Damian self conscious, and that’s the last thing he wants.

All he can do is hope that eventually, Damian will be comfortable enough to actually relax.


	31. Chapter 31

Bruce wakes to the sound of classical music from his alarm. It’s a good thing. It means  _time to get up_  rather than  _something has gone horribly wrong_.

He showers and dresses, and finds Slade in the kitchen, working through a morning coffee.

 _Just for the taste_ , Bruce realizes. The caffeine can’t do much for him.

“Azrael?” Bruce asks immediately, moving to grab his own mug.

“He’s fine,” Slade says. “Chip’s been destroyed. The wiring’s still in his brain, but removing it would probably kill him. So it’ll stay in, inert.”

It’s an uncomfortable thought, and Bruce tries to hide his horror by taking a nice long drink of the tea Alfred’s prepared for him.

“And the Order?”

“No sign of them,” Slade says. “Tim says we’re not going to get a location unless they start broadcasting again, which they’re currently not. Barbara’s set it up to detect if they do.”

So it’s a dead end. Something is happening, only they don’t know what, and they don’t have any way to follow up on the lead.

“We need that all-hands meeting, Bruce,” Slade says. “Only now it’s for a reason.”

Not just a meet and greet. No, this is something else. The Order’s been a part of Gotham for years, keeping to the shadows, and going from business as usual to dead silence is a sign of something bad.

“Tonight,” Bruce says. “In the cave. We can talk it out then.”

Slade nods, and Damian bursts in the door so quickly that Bruce is  _sure_  he was waiting just outside for this exact moment.

“I’m coming, father,” he says. “You cannot leave me out of this. This is my area of expertise.”

Jason was  _supposed_ to talk to Damian last night, but Damian’s stubborn insistence on attending the meeting tells Bruce he didn’t have the time. There were more pressing things, so Bruce opts for a non-answer.

“Jason’s in charge,” Bruce says. “You’d have to talk to him.”

Damian bolts back out the door without a word.

“We’re going to need to get him a suit,” Bruce says quietly.

“Way ahead of you,” Slade says. “Already gave Lucius all the information he needed a few days ago. Told him to wing it.”

Bruce makes a face.

“We hadn’t even  _decided_  he was going to be joining a few days ago.”

“ _You_  hadn’t decided he was going to be joining the family business,” Slade points out. “ _I_ , however, am not blind, and could read the writing on the wall. Better to have a suit and not need it than need one and not have it.”

Bruce almost wants to protest that Slade’s spending  _his_  money every time he requisitions something from Lucius, but he can’t quite make himself.

Technically speaking, he owes Slade a lot of money. But when Slade got a new Swiss bank account two years back, he simply never bothered to update Bruce on the information.

Kept making excuses, and Bruce knew what  _that_  meant.

So he lets it lie. Having a suit will be helpful anyway.

“I need to make some phone calls,” Bruce says. “Let me know if anything happens.”

He calls them all, one by one, to let them know what’s happened. He keeps it brief. They’ll all need to be given the full story when they arrive, so it’s mostly a matter of telling them when and where to meet. He expects at least one person to say they can’t make it, but by the time he’s finished all his calls,  _everyone_  has said they can show up.

When Bruce’s work gets interrupted by Jason yelling  _no costumes in the house_  at the top of his lungs, Bruce can’t even pretend to be surprised.

Maybe Jason was right. Maybe it was inevitable.

Bruce pops his head out of the office just in time to spot Damian vanishing around the corner, his arms carrying a suspicious looking bundle. Jason jogs by, looking annoyed, and Bruce sighs, drawing his attention.

“What are you  _feeding_  him?” Jason asks with mock horror. “How is he so fast?”

“You’d have to ask Alfred,” Bruce says. “I think we’re both well aware that I have nothing to do with what makes up his diet.”

“I thought he was going to vibrate through the goddamn  _wall_ when Lucius showed him his costume. I had to confiscate it to keep him from changing in the office.”

 _That_ would have gone over well.

“Everyone’s on for tonight,” Bruce says. “I was going to have it in an alternate base, but if they know who we are, they’ll be able to figure out where the cave’s located anyway. Might as well take advantage of the size.”

Not many alternate bases are going to be able to fit so many people.

“We’ve got...” Jason’s ticking down fingers as he mentally counts. “Ten? Eleven if Alfred comes down. Are we inviting Gordon?”

“Vigilantes only,” Bruce clarifies. “Extended supports, excluding Barbara, are out for now.”

“She coming in person?”

“She said she was,” Bruce says with a small nod.

Jason  _hmmms_  loudly, looking Bruce over for a moment.

“Don’t come down into the cave until people start showing up,” he says, and Bruce raises an eyebrow.

“Hiding Damian’s costume?”

“Of course,” Jason says. “You can be as surprised as the rest of them.”

Bruce doesn’t mention that Lucius showed several Robin outfit concepts to him a few months ago,  _just in case_.

Instead, he lets it go.

“I’ll stay out of the cave,” he says. “Let me know if anything comes up.”

Bruce lets Jason go back to chasing after Damian and goes back to his work.


	32. Chapter 32

There has never been a larger gathering of vigilantes in Gotham. Or at least not as far as Bruce knows. He supposes it’s  _theoretically_  possible one could have happened, but he’s not going to bet any money on it.

Dick, in his infinite wisdom, shows up in street clothes with a bag slung over his shoulder at the front door rather than coming through the cave. Alfred’s in the kitchen preparing snacks (despite Bruce’s insistence that it isn’t at all necessary), so Bruce gets the door himself.

“Thought bikes would be too conspicuous,” Dick says. “So I figured a trip back to visit family would draw less attention.”

Bruce knows Dick patrols almost entirely on foot, with a motorcycle to get him around when needed. He doesn’t need anything like the bat-mobile, except in situations  _exactly like this one_.

The boy standing in Dick’s shadow looks like he’s attempting to master invisibility. Like he’s  _willing_  Bruce not to notice him.

“Why don’t you both come in?” Bruce asks, stepping out of the way.

He’s young. Older than Damian by a mile, but still young. Bruce figures he’s about the same age that Tim was when he started, maybe seventeen or so. He looks  _awfully_  intimidated, his adam’s apple bobbing as he shuffles inside.

“I swear he’s not  _usually_  this nervous,” Dick says.

“Dick,” the boy hisses. “Are you kidding me right now? That’s-”

“Bruce,” Dick says. “No names in the manor.” His tone carries a note of warning. “Everyone else here?”

“Probably,” Bruce says. “But none of them came through the front door.”

Dick’s sidekick swallows again.

“So,” he says. “Somewhere to change?”

Dick waves for him to follow, leaving Bruce behind.

“Introductions when we’re ready!” Dick calls over his shoulder.

Bruce can’t fail to notice that Dick’s partner  _also_  has black hair. Is it just a thing? Does every male vigilante in Gotham  _have_  to have black hair?

Well, every male vigilante except Slade, he supposes. He probably counts by this point, and Bruce is pretty sure he was blond once upon a time.

Bruce retires to his room to change, using the access elevator to the batcave hidden behind a panel in his closet. It’s rarely used, but it still functions.

When the door opens, every face in the room turns to him. Most of them have seen him in the suit before, but a few new faces haven’t. A few only started their careers after he’d already retired.

He scans the faces and notes who is and isn’t there. There’s no sign of Damian or Jason, but there’s no Azrael either. Barbara has settled herself in front of the computer like she owns the place, with Tim standing just beside her, and their pupil leaning against the desk.

Dick and his own protege pause their hushed discussion when he enters, looking up.

Slade isn’t  _immediately_  visible, but he pops into sight a few seconds later before vanishing back into one of the cave’s nooks.

Every single one of them, except for Barbara, is in full costume.

Dick’s protege is dressed in a suit a lot like Dick’s own. Similar material, similar design. But where Dick has blue, his protege has yellow.

Bruce’s eyes fall to the eskrima sticks on each of their waists. The effect really comes across more as a  _partner_  and less like a  _younger sidekick_.

The young woman standing between Tim and Barbara brings up a different set of emotions entirely. The suit is so similar to Barbara’s old one that if not for her blond hair, he might have mixed them up, and Bruce wonders if the similarities are more than visual. Is she actually wearing a modified version of Barbara’s old suit?

He supposes it’s possible. It’s definitely the same gauntlets, but it does look at least a  _bit_  upgraded.

Slade emerges in his Gotham Knight armor, and Bruce lets out a silent sigh of relief. A part of him had been genuinely worried that Slade was going to show up as  _Deathstroke_ , just to haze the new recruits.

“Where-” Bruce starts, before he realizes the batmobile is missing and draws his own conclusions. “Picking up Azrael?”

“They’ll be back soon,” Slade says, his voice distorted by the modulator as he busies himself cleaning his gear.

Dick’s protege walks over to him, clearly hesitant, and Bruce turns to give him his full attention. He obviously has something to say as he stops short, clearing his throat before sticking his hand out, clearly hoping for a handshake.

“I’m Duk- Signal. We’re not doing names right now, right? It’s nice to finally meet you, sir.”

His brain seems to catch up to himself, and he abruptly attempts to correct himself.

“I mean, Mr. Batman.”

He winces.

Bruce keeps a perfectly straight face as he shakes the young man’s hand.

“Please,” Bruce says. “Mr. Batman was my father.”

The silence is so complete you could hear a pin drop, and then Slade cracks up. The sound of his laughter being adjusted by the computer sounds absolutely ridiculous, and Dick looks outraged.

“Did you just make a  _joke_? You made a joke and I wasn’t even recording it? Jason’s going to kill me!”

Signal looks mortified.

“It’s fine,” Dick says, stepping up to rest a hand on Signal’s shoulder when he recovers. “He’s kidding. Treasure this memory, you’ll probably never get another joke out of him.”

Bruce smiles, and Dick lets out a gasp of mock-surprise.

“Miracles do happen,” Tim says, with all the solemnity he can manage.

There’s a noise from farther in the cave, and everyone turns to watch as the batmobile roars into its rightful place. Jason pops out more or less immediately, followed by Azrael from the backseat.

Damian does  _not_  come out right away.

“Should I look away?” Bruce asks, and Jason sticks his head back into the batmobile for some kind of hasty conversation.

With almost no warning, Damian hops out of the passenger seat.

The first thing Bruce notices is the fact that Damian has a sword. It strikes him as a spectacularly bad idea, giving him a sword, but a sword he has, strapped across his back. He’s pretty sure there are daggers on his hip too, which only adds to the clear sense that Damian has too many weapons.

The suit itself looks fairly reminiscent of the old Robin suits. Most of the suit is black, made of a thick material intended for protection. The splashes of color are from the chest-piece and his cape. The cape is a dirty yellow, falling down to his ankles, and the pooling of fabric around his neck makes it obvious it can be pulled up as a hood. The top’s got extra armor, a deep red, and where the familiar  _R_  was probably intended to be is instead an  _S_.

A red domino mask sits across his face, obscuring his features.

Bruce approves of how little skin it shows. The old costumes--the ones they used to wear--left too much unarmored. The suit isn’t going to stop a bullet to the arm, but it’ll do what it can to minimize the damage.

That matters a lot, as he’s come to realize.

Damian completely ignores everyone else in the room, heading right up to Bruce as if presenting himself for inspection.

“Did Batman agree to let you have a sword?” Bruce asks, glancing towards Jason.

“L had one in the weapon’s vault,” Jason says. “He’d snagged it before he could protest. He’s got the old man wrapped around his finger.”

Bruce is  _really_  not surprised. Lucius has always enjoyed designing their gear, and having someone new to design for...

“Introductions?” Jason prompts.

Bruce glances over and nods.

Jason keeps looking at him, and it dawns on Bruce he’s probably supposed to start.

He clears his throat.

“It’s good to have everyone here finally,” Bruce says. “I was hoping we’d be having this meeting under more calm circumstances, but we’ll have to make do. For those who don’t know-”

Which is no one, but he pretends just for a moment they might not.

“-I served as the original Batman before my retirement. My civilian identity is Bruce Wayne.”

He doesn’t try and pretend like they don’t know who Bruce Wayne is as he reaches up, pulling his cowl back.

Azrael and Tim’s apprentice look surprised. Signal, on the other hand, is doing a poor job at pretending like he didn’t already know.

Bruce glances to Jason, letting him go next.

“I’m operating as the new Batman,” Jason says. “After I took over. Before that, I was the second Robin.”

He reaches up, pulling back his own cowl, and Bruce notes that he doesn’t mention anything about being the Arkham Knight. Probably for the best. It’s not a period Jason enjoys talking about much.

“Jason To- Wilson-Wayne.”

“Nightwing,” Dick says without pause, popping his domino off. “I used to be the first Robin. Dick Grayson-Wayne.”

“I’m noticing a pattern here,” Signal says, reaching up to pull his own domino off. “I’m... uh, not a Wayne. I go by Signal, and Dick’s been coaching me through the vigilante thing. My real name’s Duke Thomas.”

He glances to the left, where Azrael stands just beside Slade. There seems to be a clear line between the younger generation and the older, and Azrael knows which side he stands on.

“Azrael,” he says. “I ser-  _served_  the Order of Saint Dumas in order to protect Gotham.” He reaches up, pulling off the helmet as he does.

His sword, Bruce notes, is missing.

“My name is Michael Lane.”

“Gotham Knight,” Slade says as he pulls off his own helmet. “But for those of you who keep up with that sort of thing, I used to go by Deathstroke.”

The new girl makes a small noise of alarm, and Azrael actually takes a step back.

“Oh, calm down,” Slade says, shooting Azrael a dirty look. “I've known about Bruce and the boys for years without issue. Your secret's safe with me.”

“You could have just  _not mentioned_  the Deathstroke thing,” Jason says pointedly.

Slade gives him a wolfish grin.

“Where’s the fun in that?” He asks. “Name’s Slade Wilson.”

Tim’s prodigy seems to catch the relation, glancing between Jason and Slade. Even with the domino mask, Bruce can tell she’s scrunching her eyebrows together, but she doesn’t actually ask.

“Tim Wayne-Gordon,” Tim says as he pulls off his cowl. “Or Tim Drake. I’ll answer to either, but I also go by Robin. Which makes me the third Robin, technically.”

“Barbara Gordon-Wayne,” Barbara says with a cheeky grin. Duke’s looking more confused by the second, trying to keep track of all the relationships.

“Stephanie Brown,” the other new arrival says. “I go by Batgirl.”

“Oh,” Barbara adds quickly. “Right. I go by Oracle, but I was the original Batgirl, for those of you who remember that.”

That only leaves one person unintroduced, and Damian smirks at the gathering.

“I go by Shrike,” he says, as if that’s a name he’s been using for years and not an identity he’s assumed within the last hour. “My true name is Damian Wayne.”

Bruce does what he can to stem the confusion.

“I started as Batman,” Bruce says. “I adopted Dick, and he talked me into making him my Robin. When he left for Bludhaven to start his own career, I took in Jason as the second.”

He hesitates for only a moment, and then smooths things over.

“Tim took over as the third Robin when I adopted him, and when Jason returned he took over as Batman when I stepped down. Tim married Barbara, and then Damian joined the family relatively recently.”

“Ah,” Stephanie says. “And him?” She makes a  _very_  small gesture towards Slade, eyeing him warily. “Because last I was aware he was like... you know,  _Deathstroke the Terminator.”_

“Ohhh,” Tim says. “She busted out _the terminator_  on you.”

“Picked up a stray on a job,” Slade says. “Ended up sticking around to make sure they didn’t do anything too stupid.”

Jason rolls his eyes and flips Slade off. Slade just grins right back.

“He’s Jason’s father,” Bruce clarifies, because it’s extremely obvious that neither Slade  _nor_  Jason are going to. “He’s part of the family.”

“Aww, Bruce,” Slade says, swooning like a southern belle. “I didn’t know you cared.”

Jason looks genuinely flustered, and does what he can to get things back on task.

“As nice as this all is,” Jason says. “We do have something serious to talk about, so can we talk about that?”


	33. Chapter 33

They settle in to talk, and there’s clear tension in the air. Most of them have at least an idea of what’s happening, but almost no one has the full story.

“We’re here to talk about what’s happened to the Order,” Bruce says. “Whether or not they’re an ally in the long run doesn’t matter as much as the fact that they’ve gone missing. Azrael?”

He nods to Michael, who clears his throat. Bruce wonders how often he talks without his helmet on. He suspects the answer is  _very rarely_. From what he can tell, Michael effectively doesn’t have a life at all. He  _knows_  he doesn’t have a job.

“I lost contact with the order three days ago,” Michael says. “I was given my orders as usual, and carried them out throughout the night. However, I was not told my work was done when the night ended. I waited until the sun had risen before I returned, but did not receive further contact.”

“None?” Slade asks, and Michael shakes his head.

“I have not heard from them since then.”

“No way to contact them?”

“None.”

Everyone glances around, and Bruce grunts.

“It’s concerning that they suddenly went no contact,” Bruce says. “Any sort of unusual change with so large a group is concerning.”

“But unless they start sending orders again,” Tim says, “we’re not going to have any leads to follow. We’ve already followed up on everything and come up empty handed.”

“We don’t have any options then,” Bruce says. “We just need to keep our eyes open.”

Duke clears his throat, and  _everyone_ turns to look at him.

“So,” Duke says. “Uh. I didn’t bring it up before, but were you guys... watching me?”

Dick looks confused.

“I mean... I was?”

Duke shakes his head.

“I mean like... I kind of thought with this whole meeting that you’d be trying to make sure I could be trusted. Like, making sure I’m not going to tell anyone, and that I’m on the up and up.”

“If Dick trusts you,” Jason says, “then we’re not going to second guess him.”

Duke looks embarrassed, and Bruce clears his throat.

“You’re bringing this up for a reason,” Bruce says. “Which means you thought someone was keeping an eye on you?”

“It was just for like... one second. But for a minute, I swore someone was up on the roof, watching us.”

“When?” Dick asks immediately, looking alarmed.

“Yesterday,” Duke says. “But I didn’t say anything because I thought it was like... a test.”

“If we were going to test you like that,” Slade says, “the test would be to see if you could spot us.”

“So someone was spying on Duke?” Barbara asks.

“We don’t know that,” Bruce says. “Right now, there’s no reason to connect the two points. Duke might have been mistaken, or it might just have been a civilian. We do sometimes get people trying to snap photos.”

“Like that reporter last year...” Dick says with a groan of frustration.

“The point is,” Bruce says, “it’s good we know, but at this point it’s just something to keep in mind.”

There’s a long silence.

“So,” Tim says. “The real question of the night: who’s going on patrol, and who gets to tuck in early?”

They end up playing rock paper scissors to determine who ends up where. Alfred shows up with snacks in the middle, which delays everyone from leaving the cave while they enjoy the food.

Michael opts out of the competition entirely, promising to stay in contact as he keeps to his usual route.

Tim and Barbara end up heading home, taking Stephanie along with them. Dick and Duke head back to Bludhaven with a quick goodbye, and Jason and Slade end up patrolling Gotham.

But not alone.

“I am going, father,” Damian says, planting his feet squarely.

Bruce doesn’t answer right away. Instead he looks to Jason, who offers a shrug and mouths  _up to you_.

Bruce turns his attention back to Damian, and then pauses, dropping down onto one knee to be at eye level.

“You need to listen to Jason,” Bruce says. “And to Slade. You need to follow their instructions, even if you think they’re being foolish or stupid. They’ve been at this for years, and while you’ve had a lot of training, that training can’t replace  _experience_. You need to put your safety first.”

Damian scowls at him.

“I’m serious, Damian,” Bruce says. “Promise me you’ll listen to them and do as they ask.”

Damian looks like he’s strongly considering not promising anything, but finally does nod.

“I swear it, father.”

Bruce pushes himself to his feet, resting a hand on Damian’s shoulder as he glances back towards where Jason and Slade stand.

“Take care of him,” Bruce says.

“I’ll only drop him of a roof once,” Slade says, solemn as can be.

Bruce scowls at him, and Slade grins back.

“I’ll handle the computer,” Bruce says. “Someone has to keep an eye on you three.”

He doesn’t think he’s going to be able to go to sleep with Damian out on patrol. It was stressful enough having to sit at home knowing everyone else was patrolling before, but Damian, on his  _first night_?

No, he’s not sleeping tonight.


	34. Chapter 34

Bruce doesn’t sleep that night.

When Alfred visits to check on him, he gives Bruce a knowing smile. He leaves him snacks and a variety of drinks, and then leaves him to his work.

Bruce wasn’t half as worried with the rest of the Robins, but with the rest of the Robins he’d been out there. Sitting in the cave at the computer, listening to the radio chatter makes him feel absolutely helpless, and it takes a lot to keep himself there rather than just pulling his suit on and going after them himself just to be  _sure_.

They don’t run into any trouble, and when they return to the cave close to five in the morning, Damian shows absolutely zero signs of exhaustion. He’s still  _bouncing_ , and he’s only too happy to head right up to Bruce, telling him all about the mugging they stopped and the break-in they foiled. 

“Didn’t even stab anyone,” Slade says as he heads to the shower. Bruce can’t tell if he’s pleased or disappointed.

Jason yawns, ushering Damian upstairs, and Bruce pauses for a moment just to pull Jason outside.

Jason eyes him warily.

“Are you about to thank me for looking out for him?” Jason asks before Bruce can even open his mouth.

Bruce opens his mouth.

Bruce closes it again.

Jason grunts at him.

“I’m not interested in thank yous for things like that,” Jason says. “The kid’s  _my_  Robin. That means I’ve got to look out for him.”

Bruce doesn’t correct that he’s not  _technically_  a Robin. It’s close enough.

“Thank you anyway,” Bruce says. “And... you did a good job tonight. Mentoring him.”

Even if he wasn't there, he could still hear the chatter. He knows how he ran things. He knows that Jason was careful, and that he walked Damian through every step.

“ _He_  did a good job,” Jason says, but his ears are pink as he heads up the stairs.

Bruce ends up sleeping through the morning. He doesn’t get out of bed until after noon, earning himself a lecture from Alfred.

Damian isn’t much better. For all his enthusiasm the night before, he naps through most of the afternoon.

Bruce gets a call from the Academy, and schedules Damian’s tests for the next week. He chats with Lucius about work, catching up on what he’s missed.

He waits for a call from Tim or Barbara that he doesn’t get. There’s no updates, and no new information.

Azrael goes on patrol again that night, and Damian’s disappointed to learn they’re alternating. He insists he’s just fine with things, but ends up sulking the whole way back to his room, which requires him to change out of his gear.

Bruce actually sleeps that night.

He wakes two hours before his alarm to a rapping at his door. Alfred’s already opening the door as he lifts his head from the pillow, still disoriented.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred says. “Commissioner Gordon is at the door, asking to speak with you. He says it’s quite urgent.”

“Just - give me a minute,” Bruce says.

If Jim's come all the way out to the manor before it’s even six AM, that means something’s happened. Something serious enough that he can’t just call or pass a message through Barbara. Bruce doesn’t bother dressing, pulling on a housecoat and heading for the slippers.

Alfred’s hovering in the entrance-way where Jim stands, still in his coat and shoes. That means he’s not staying, which only makes the situation more confusing.

“Jim?” Bruce asks, rubbing at his eyes as Alfred heads to the kitchen. “What’s going on?”

No one dead. Or at least no one he’s close to. If something had happened to Barbara or Tim, the circumstances would be different. Jim looks upset, but it’s more agitation than despair.

“I need to know something,” Jim says. “And I need the real, actual truth. You  _cannot_  fuck around with me on this. I need the truth.”

Bruce is more than a little bit taken aback. Whatever it is, it has bat business written all over it.

“Alright,” Bruce says as Alfred arrives, passing Bruce a mug of coffee that he seems to have pulled out of thin air. Bruce downs half of it in one go, well aware he probably needs to be actually  _awake_  for whatever Jim's about to hit him with.

“Did one of your boys break into the station? And before you try and cheat around it, that counts your boys, your boys' boys,  _Wilson_ , whoever.”

Bruce is pretty sure he’d have heard of that.

“No,” he says. “No one’s done anything near the station.” They don’t really need to. Jim's a solid contact, and anything he doesn’t give them, Barbara’s happy to help with.

“Are you  _sure_?” Jim asks. “Absolutely sure?”

Bruce doesn’t even get a chance to respond before Jim changes his mind.

“Ask them, Bruce,” Jim says. “I need to be sure.”

“What’s this about, Jim?”

“I’ll tell you after you ask.”

Bruce sighs and pulls out his phone. He calls Dick first. He’s already at work, if a little (or a lot) confused as to why he’s being called so early. He confirms he’s been in Bludhaven since Bruce last saw him, and that he can say the same for Duke.

He calls Tim. He feels a little (or a lot) silly calling Jim's own son-in-law, and when the phone’s answered by a sleepy sounding Barbara he feels that much sillier. They’ve probably just gotten to bed.

“Barbara,” Bruce says. “Did anyone on your side of things go near...” He glances at Jim, and then goes for it, deciding he’ll be corrected if he’s wrong. “Near police headquarters?”

“Headquarters?” She asks blearily. “No, we were down by the docks all night. Black Mask had a shipment coming in.”

“What about Azrael?”

“With us,” she says. “Tim wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure things hadn’t gotten messed up with the chip and all.”

“And you saw him home?”

“Tim took him to his apartment,” Barbara says. “Said he’d talk to you about it in the morning. It wasn’t really important. Why am I getting the fifth degree at this hour?”

“Not sure,” Bruce says. “Go to sleep. I’ll call you if I need anything else.”

“Leave a message when you know,” Barbara says, and hangs up before he can say anything else.

“And?” Jim asks.

“Nothing from any on their side,” Bruce says. “Which is everyone.”

“Wilson?”

Bruce is absolutely sure Slade has better things to do than harass Jim, but he sighs and nods. Jim's not going to be content unless he asks, so he gestures for Jim to wait and heads down the east wing.

He knocks, but there’s no response. He doesn’t have an actual time period, which is going to make asking Slade harder, so he decides being vague is probably better.

He knocks again, and then pops his head in.

Slade’s sprawled out in the bed, half-covered and scowling. His eye’s open, staring at Bruce, and it takes Bruce a second to register that he can actually see  _both_  eyes--or more accurately, one eye and a messy, scarred up socket. It feels strangely personal seeing him without the eye-patch, and Bruce averts his eyes.

“Did you break into GCPD headquarters?” Bruce asks.

“Not any time  _recently_ ,” Slade says.

It is definitely not the answer Bruce is expecting, and it catches him off guard even if it shouldn’t.

Of  _course_  Slade’s broken in at least once.

“How recently is recently?”

“Not for a few years,” Slade says. “Unless you’re interrogating me about decade old cases, let me go back to bed.”

A few years is  _definitely_  out of range, so he nods.

“Go to sleep, I’ll update you when you’re up.”

Slade rolls over and buries his face in the pillow, and Bruce withdraws, closing the door behind him before heading back to the entrance-way.

“So?” Jim asks. He’s fidgeting where he stands, his foot tapping away impatiently.

“Hasn’t been anywhere near the station,” Bruce says.

“And you trust him?”

Bruce doesn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” he says. He doesn’t need to explain his reasons, just  _hold his ground_ , and after a moment, Jim nods.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” Bruce asks. He feels like he’s being led around on a leash, and he’s still got no idea why.

“Someone broke into headquarters last night,” Jim says. “We  _think_  it happened right around shift change.”

“You  _think_?” Bruce doesn’t get how they can  _think_  that. The place has cameras. A  _lot_  of cameras.

“Someone bypassed our security,” Jim says. “Security system kept looping without us realizing. From what we got, it was a single perpetrator. Went right on in down to the evidence room, sedated the officer on duty, and then locked the door. We think they were down there for an hour or two before they left. We found out when the next shift showed up.”

There’s a  _lot_  of elements involved, and almost all of them point to either a team or an extremely skilled perpetrator. They had to pick the right time, had to get through the physical and digital security...

“What did they take?”

“Nothing,” Jim says. “That we know, anyway. We’re still cataloging everything to make sure we didn’t miss it. From what we can tell they pulled a lot of files, read through them, and then left.”

Bruce feels like there’s a stone in his throat. He understands  _exactly_  why Jim came to them first, because the whole thing feels like the exact sort of thing that the Batman might have done years ago, before he started working with the police.

“What files?”

“Bad ones,” Jim says. “We’re still making a list. But the big ones are the reasons I’m here. Todd’s missing person’s case. Barbara’s shooting. What happened at Arkham Asylum before it was closed. The Arkham City files.”

Bruce’s stomach keeps sinking lower.

“Maybe a dozen files about the Joker’s most recent cases before his incarceration. And then a lot of seemingly unrelated murder cases. Unsolved murders over the last six months. They pulled every single murder case that hasn’t been solved in the past month. It’s a  _huge_  data breach.”

Bruce can already imagine the nightmare the station must be right then. He’s shocked Jim managed to get away from it, but he gets his answer almost immediately.

“I’m supposed to be off until Thursday,” Jim says. “And they’re calling me in anyway. I came here first, just so I could rule all of you out. But whatever this is, it’s bad.”

“Sorry, Jim,” Bruce says after a moment, “I don’t have anything for you. But...”

“But?” Jim asks, leaping at any possible information.

“You remember the Order of Saint Dumas?”

“The cult Azrael works for?”

Bruce nods.

“They’ve gone missing,” Bruce says. “Either they’ve abandoned him, or something’s happened to them. We’re looking into that.”

Jim chews on his lip, eyes wandering around the room as he thinks it out.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Might be related. Might not. But I’ll keep it in mind if anything comes up.”

“Let me know if you hear anything,” Bruce says, seeing Jim to the door.

Bruce doesn’t get any more sleep. Instead, he heads down to the cave, sending a message to everyone.

 **Batman:** We’re on heightened security protocols until I say otherwise.

 **Batman:** That means report in before you do anything. It means any time you’re in costume, you only ever use aliases. I don’t want any real names. I don’t want any initials, either.

 **Batman:** Until we know what’s happening, I want everyone to be safe.

He watches over the next hour as people check in, confirming their understanding, and only once they all have does he allow himself to head upstairs.


	35. Chapter 35

Bruce  _knows_  he’s being stupid, but he can’t let himself take the chance that he’s not. He can’t risk being  _right_.

So he passes over the kitchen entirely, heading deeper into the house, past his office. There’s a linen cupboard and a display case with old mementos--his mother’s pearls, the key to the city his father was given--and when he slides open the case and presses the side of the display in  _just_  the right place, the wall to his left slides open.

He closes the case again and steps inside. He needs to scan his palm  _and_  his retina before he can actually get in, sliding into the manor’s security suite without issue.

For the most part, it’s automatic. It’s also largely fed down to the computer in the cave. There’s no need to actually enter the room at all, which is part of the reason that only he and Alfred have access.

The other reason is this. He settles into the chair, pulling up the manor’s security feeds. They record everything, even if that information isn’t accessible down in the cave, and he flips through the feeds at lightning pace.

The hallways. The kitchen. The pantry (where Alfred can be seen preparing the morning meal). He only stops when he reaches what he was looking for: a shot of an empty bedroom.

The bedrooms, in theory, have no cameras. They have cameras at the entrances and aimed down towards the windows to catch any intruders, but inside the bedrooms aren’t supposed to have any. The only bedroom that’s  _supposed_ to have any is the one specific guest room they use just in emergencies, and it’s been empty for years.

But it’s a lie, and only Bruce knows it.

He swallows down his fear and flips the feed back twelve hours. The room’s still empty, and he switches the speed so he’s watching a minute of footage every second, watching the screen. Nothing changes.

And then, at midnight, he watches himself enter the room. The speed’s fast enough he sees only glimpses. Himself, vanishing into the bathroom. Himself, returning a few frames later. Going through his normal night routine, and then turning the lights off and sliding into bed.

The camera shifts automatically into night vision mode, and Bruce leans back, watching himself sleep.

He tosses and turns in the bed, burying his face in the pillow. But he doesn’t wake, and as second after second goes by he lets himself relax, bit by bit.

He finally lets himself breathe when he sees Alfred’s head pop in the door, waking him from his sleep.

Bruce closes the security feed and scrubs at his face with his hands.

It wasn’t him. No matter what’s happening, it wasn’t  _him_ , and that’s the greatest relief he can imagine.

Bruce can’t pretend to be surprised when he opens the hidden door to find Slade outside, leaning against the wall with his arms folded over his chest.

“Bruce,” he says, a note of warning in his voice. “Going to explain what’s going on?”

“Someone broke into GCPD headquarters,” Bruce says. “They raided the evidence room, read through a bunch of files, and left without taking anything. The files had a... a lot of Joker related material.”

Slade’s eyes narrow.

“And?”

“It wasn’t me,” Bruce says after a moment. “I confirmed.”

“Do I want to know how you  _confirmed_  you weren’t experiencing the world’s most horrifying case of sleep walking?”

“No,” Bruce says, knowing it’s the truth.

Slade grunts, but lets it drop.

“Explains why Gordon made you wake me up,” he says. “This has  _me_  written all over it.”

“When’d you last break in?” Bruce asks, unable to stop his curiosity from getting the best of him.

“Back when Jason was still the Arkham Knight,” he says. “Broke in to check his missing person’s file.”

Bruce wonders how many similarities there are between the two break-ins. He suspects the answer is  _a lot_.

“Let the police do their thing,” Slade says. “But tell Gordon that if he wants, he can bring me on as a security consultant to figure out how they got in.”

Bruce is pretty sure Jim would flay himself alive before he brought Slade on.

“He’d ask Tim first,” Bruce says. “Or just explicitly ask Batman.”

"Probably better detectives than me,” Slade says, as if the Gotham Knight wouldn’t end up accompanying Batman along.

But Jim doesn’t end up needing any help. He calls later that afternoon to let Bruce know his findings. Nothing’s really changed from what he heard that morning, but Jim promises to pass Barbara a list of the files that were pulled. The  _how_  isn’t that hard to find, and the  _who_  is far more pressing.

Bruce keeps everyone else updated, and tries not to stress himself too much.

But the stress rears its head after dinner is finished, when Jason and Slade head down to the cave and Damian goes after them.

“Hold on,” Bruce says. “You can’t seriously be thinking of taking him out tonight.”

“He’s already rested,” Jason says, completely and utterly missing the point.

“Something’s going on,” Bruce says. “We have an entire missing organization, someone spying on Duke, and a break in at the GCPD. It’s dangerous.”

“Bruce,” Jason says. “It’s always dangerous. That’s the job. If it wasn’t dangerous, we wouldn’t be doing it. Yes, something’s probably going on. But right now, none of that stuff is  _dangerous_.”

It’s Slade that gives the most damning reply as Damian scowls up at Bruce.

“Bruce,” he says. “Do you really think he’s going to be any safer here in his pajamas than he’d be out with us in full armor? We’re not spreading out. We’re sticking together.”

Bruce tries to swallow down his concerns. Slade’s right. Jason’s right. Nothing genuinely threatening has actually happened. His paranoia’s just taking him for a ride.

He hopes it stays that way.

“Alright,” Bruce finally says. “But keep me updated, alright?”

He doesn’t sleep that night either, listening to the chatter over the comms as he tries to calm his own fears.


	36. Chapter 36

Bruce tries to let himself relax, but it’s easier said than done. There’re a million and one things that  _could_  go wrong, and his brain spends every waking moment telling him all about them.

He tries to distract himself by keeping busy. There’s plenty to do now that he can be reasonably sure that Damian isn’t going to steal any more knives, and he makes a point of doing as many of them as possible.

He takes him to his tailor, making sure Damian has something nice to wear for high class events. He lets him pick out furniture for his room.

He takes him to an actual, honest-to-god doctor. He considers an actual pediatrician, but decides he can’t possibly explain all the training scars that Damian has on him. Instead, he takes Damian to Doctor Thompkins, who’s increasingly handling  _all_  their medical needs.

She frowns when she looks over Damian.

“I’m not a pediatrician,” she says, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m a surgeon.”

“He was raised by the League of Assassins,” Bruce says. “You’re the only doctor who knows about my nighttime activities. Any  _good_  doctor who didn’t already know would report me to child services, and I don’t want to take him to a bad one.”

Thompkins obviously disapproves, but she ends up running Damian through the checkup anyway. He’s got plenty of healed up scars and only a few current bruises (she gives Bruce a dirty look for every single one), but eventually she takes some blood, runs a few more tests, and declares him to be in perfect health.

“Of course,” Damian says. “It would have been highly inefficient if I became ill.”

Bruce finds himself continually impressed with Damian’s professionalism. He’s on perfect behavior when he’s around adults, and Bruce slowly accepts he’s underestimated him.

In most regards, anyway.

A few days after the break in, Bruce makes the mistake of letting Damian be around someone else his age. It’s not planned, but an old work associate runs into them while Bruce is out picking up lunch while Alfred cleans the kitchen. He has his son with him, so Bruce doesn’t see the harm in letting the boys play while he talks things over with Howell.

Or at least he doesn’t see the harm until Howell’s son starts screaming bloody murder.

Bruce is off the bench he was sitting on before Howell can even start to react. The structure’s open enough he can see where Damian stands near the top of the structure, but he can’t immediately see Howell’s son.

More than a decade of experience as Batman has left him absolutely overqualified for a children’s playground, but Bruce doesn’t let that stop him as he scales the structure to find Damian and Howell’s son at the very top. Damian won’t meet his eyes, turning away the moment Bruce pulls himself over the railing. Howell’s son is still wailing, lying on the ground, his hands clutching his head as he sobs his eyes out.

Bruce crouches down in the confined space, checking how bad it is.

It’s not bad. There’s blood, but it’s a head wound, and Bruce knows better than most that head wounds bleed like faucets. He carefully applies pressure, scooping the boy into his arms as he tries to figure out how he’s supposed to get  _out_  of the structure with one arm occupied.

“Bruce?!” Howell yells from the ground.

“Hold on,” Bruce says. There’s no other way, so he simply ends up coming out the way he went in, scaling down the rope ladder with one arm with a level of skill that Bruce Wayne should absolutely not have.

It’s absolutely breaking character, but Howell looks too distressed to particularly notice when Bruce finally hits the ground.

“What happened?!” Howell says.

“Banged his head,” Bruce says. “I have a med kit in the car, but it looks pretty shallow.”

Damian trails after them, sullen and silent, as Bruce grabs the med kit. He lets Howell hold his son as he cleans the injury, but by that point the bleeding’s mostly stopped, and Howell’s son is down to sniffling unhappily rather than wailing.

Damian’s still silent, his hands balled into fists, and Bruce’s adrenaline is easing down enough to take a deep breath.

“I’m going to go talk to Damian and make sure he’s alright,” Bruce says after a moment. “Hopefully the next time I see you we’ll part on better terms.”

Howell nods, and Bruce makes a mental note to have Alfred send over... what, a fruit basket? Some sort of  _hopefully everything’s alright with you_  gift.

Damian  _still_  hasn’t said anything as Howell starts to leave, and Bruce turns his attention back to him.

Damian  _barely_  moves, but Bruce catches the flinch. His head’s still down, eyes on the ground.

He’s waiting for Bruce to react, and Bruce feels like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff. He has to be very,  _very_  careful about how he reacts. Has to reach back for every bit of parenting advice he’s ever heard.

He makes himself take a deep breath.

“Did you mean to hurt him?” Bruce asks. He does everything he can to keep his voice even. To keep his voice from rising.

He’s upset. But he’s not  _angry_. And he needs to show that.

“No,” Damian says, his voice so quiet Bruce has to strain to hear it.

“Then it was an accident,” Bruce says. “I’m not-”

He falters, just for a moment, making himself take a deep breath.

“I’m not going to hurt you because you made a mistake.”

He doesn’t  _know_ , but he  _suspects._ The flinch is too telling. The flinch says  _I’m expecting to be hit_. Bruce knows enough about the league to know they’re not above physical punishments, and everything he’s seen tells him that they didn’t treat Damian like a child: they treated him like a soldier, a true member of the league.

Bruce makes himself take another deep breath.

“He’ll be fine,” Bruce says. “He just banged his head. He won’t even need stitches.” He’s  _very_  aware that things could have been a lot worse. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Bruce knows the answer is  _no_ , but Damian answers him anyway.

“He was slow,” Damian says. “He didn’t even try and dodge.”

“He was expecting someone who was as strong and fast as him,” Bruce says. He has no idea what game they were playing, or if they were even  _really_  playing a game. But he can take a guess, and the fine details don’t really matter anyway. “Not someone like you. You’re a lot faster and a lot stronger than anyone else your age, Damian.”

“They should have been training,” Damian says sullenly.

“They don’t have to,” Bruce says. “They didn’t have to fight anyone, so they didn’t  _need_  any training.”

Damian’s still staring at the ground, and Bruce reaches up, resting his hand against Damian’s cheek as he tries to lift it slightly.

“Look at me, Damian.”

He’s obviously unhappy with it, but he finally does, eyes flicking up. Bruce just hopes he finds whatever he’s looking for. Honesty? Something along those lines. Something that isn’t  _anger_.

“I’m not angry,” he says. “I’m upset, but only with myself. I should have... been more prepared for this. Talked to you before I let you play with someone your age.”

If he can even count it as  _playing_.

“I should have known better,” Damian says.

Bruce opens his mouth to say  _no you shouldn’t have_ , and then changes his mind.

“Yes,” he says. “But that isn’t your fault. The league wasn’t interested in teaching you about how things are for most people. They taught you to be the best assassin you possibly could be, but they did so at the cost of having a normal life.”

He straightens up, reaching down to take Damian’s hand as he walks him around, making sure Damian gets into the passenger seat before he climbs into the driver’s side himself. Even when they’re inside, he doesn’t start the car right away.

“I want you to have that. To be able to... to have a childhood. I’m not worried about you becoming a vigilante. I’m not worried about you having a secret identity. I’m worried you’re going to throw away your chance to have a  _normal life_  in exchange for them.”

“It’s what I want,” Damian says, which is the most he’s made his feelings known on the matter.

“It’s what you’ve been told to want,” Bruce says. “Whether or not it’s what you  _actually_ want isn’t something you can say. You don’t know what a normal life is even like at this point.”

“I wasn’t meant to have a normal life,” Damian says. “I was meant to be grandfather’s successor. If he hadn’t-” Damian falters, just for a moment, and Bruce clenches his teeth so hard it hurts. Damian shouldn’t have to be worried about this sort of thing. He shouldn’t be stressing about  _inheriting the League of Assassins_.

“If he hadn’t died, I would still be his heir,” Damian finishes.

“Things would be different if Ra’s hadn’t died,” Bruce agrees. He just thinks he and Damian have very different views of things. “I’m not sure we’d have ever met. Or maybe not until you were an adult.”

Damian’s head whips around to stare at him, and when he speaks there’s an edge to his voice.

“Grandfather would have told you,” he says pointedly. “He would not have kept me from you.”

“He did,” Bruce says. “For the first eight years of your life. If he had told me you existed, things would have been different.”

Damian doesn’t say a single word for so long that Bruce keeps having to glance over to check and make sure he’s still awake. He’s staring straight ahead, working through things at his own pace.

“Would you have come?” Damian finally asks.

“I wouldn’t have left you with him,” Bruce says. He’s not interested in lying. He’s not interested in pretending like he’d have joined up with the league and run around as a happy family with Ra’s. “I would have found a way. Maybe Talia would have left his side for a chance at something better. But no matter what, I wouldn’t have just left you with him. I’d have found a way.”

“That’s what Batman does,” Damian says quietly. “Finds a way.”

“It’s what Bruce Wayne does,” Bruce says, regretting having slipped into the car for privacy. It makes it harder to lean over, pulling Damian into a one-armed hug. “I wouldn’t have left you.”

He’s not sure Damian believes him, but Damian does lean into the hug a little bit. Bruce stays there for a moment before he finally pulls away, putting the car into reverse.

“Let’s go get food,” Bruce says. “And maybe you can pick a get-well gift for Jamie when we get back home.”

“Self-defense lessons,” Damian mumbles under his breath, and Bruce lets out a laugh.


	37. Chapter 37

Bruce sends a gift basket to Howell. He knows him well enough to be  _fairly_  sure nothing more is going to come of what happened, but Bruce prefers to ease any possible tension. Howell brings the whole family to every Wayne Gala, which means at some point, Damian is likely to be in contact with the boy again.

Hopefully  _after_  having gotten a bit more used to what he should be expecting from someone who isn’t a vigilante or an assassin.

He lets Alfred know what happened in private after they eat lunch, and Alfred promises to see what he can do to let Damian relax. He’s showing signs of anxiety from what happened, and Bruce has his own obligations.

He does make a point of seeing Damian before he leaves for work, checking in to make sure he’s alright. He probably  _isn’t_ \--he’s still quieter than usual--but he insists he is.

Bruce makes a little  _hmm_  and says he’ll be back later.

Lucius is waiting in the foyer when Bruce pulls up to Wayne Enterprises, adjusting his tie before heading in.

“Just like old times,” Lucius says when Bruce reaches him, and when Bruce raises an eyebrow he explains. “You coming in once a week at most. I almost thought we’d broken that streak.”

“A lot came up,” Bruce says. “I’ll try and be a bit more present.”

“Don’t you worry about me ribbing you, Bruce,” Lucius says as he waves him into the elevator. “We can run things just fine. And you’ve been calling in almost every day.”

“That’s hardly a replacement for me actually being here,” Bruce points out. He knows that when things go wrong, Wayne Enterprises is the first to suffer.

“You don’t have to worry about it,” Lucius says. “I know you would be here if it weren’t important.”

Lucius gives him a knowing look, and Bruce sighs before nodding.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “What are we dealing with today?”

It turns out to be an overly aggressive buyout attempt of their applied sciences division, but considering that the division’s running double duty supplying Jason and Slade with gear, Bruce has no plans to sell it.

He tries to pretend like he cares, but it’s  _hard_. The man won’t take no for an answer, and Bruce literally finds himself zoning out as the man prattles on about all the money he’s offering.

Bruce sees something in his peripheral vision and turns his head. The movement is so quick he doesn’t even realize what it is, but he reacts on instinct, standing up and heading for the window just as it vanishes.

A flash of black on the rooftop of the building opposite them. Not quite at eye level, but close enough to  _mostly_  see inside the office at the right angle.

“Bruce...?” Lucius asks, stunned into silence by the sudden movement.

“Hold on,” Bruce says. “I’ll come back.”

He isn’t sure if he’s going to, and Lucius follows him out as he steps into the floor’s security room. It takes a bit to find the right camera, the one positioned in such a way that the windows are in the back.

The quality isn’t high enough to see much of anything, but from the angle he gets the confirmation he needs: A black dot on the roof opposite the window, perfectly still until Bruce steps up, moving to the window. He’s blocking the view of the camera, but when he watches himself step away, the dots gone.

“Someone was watching,” Bruce says quietly. “Someone was on the roof opposite.”

How much could be seen? Very little at that kind of distance, but combined with everything else he knows, it cranks his paranoia to its limit.

“Can we pull camera footage from their roof?” Bruce asks, glancing to Lucius.

“That would assume they have cameras,” Lucius says, “which I doubt they do. But I can check and let you know.”

“Apologize to the meeting for me,” Bruce says. "And call whoever’s in charge of building security right now.”

The person in charge of building security turns out to be a woman who has  _ex-military_ written all over her. She looks deeply concerned by the fact that the CEO of the company is personally involved in whatever’s happening as she strides up to him.

“I spotted someone on the roof of the building on our east side,” Bruce says. “When I looked at them, they bolted.”

“Corporate saboteur?” She asks immediately.

“Possibly,” he says. “I’m not ruling anything out. I’m not sure if this is a police matter at this point, but I’d like to check the roof myself.”

“That would be the Miyani building,” she says. “I go to lunch with their head of security on Fridays, so she should be on duty. I’ll speak with her now.”

The receptionist of the Miyani Corporation looks even more alarmed than his security chief did when the acting head of Wayne Enterprises security and Bruce Wayne walk in the front door, and they’re quickly ushered into a side room to wait. There’s a hasty discussion between the two security heads, at which point the woman from Miyani looks over, scrutinizing Bruce herself.

“You want to go up personally?”

“I prefer to see things for myself,” Bruce says. “Trust, but verify.”

“Of course,” she finally says. “The Miyani Corporation has always been on good terms with your company--if someone is trying to spy on you, they’re doing so without our knowledge.”

“Of course,” Bruce says. “Is anyone allowed on the roof?”

“It’s sealed,” she confirms. “Or supposed to be.”

It turns out to be more than  _supposed to be_. The roof’s locked when they get up there, and Bruce has to resist the urge to inspect the lock for signs it’s been picked.

He doesn’t need to bother. There’s a small observation post on the west side of the roof, closest to the Wayne building. It’s little more than a place for a person to sit, a small set of binoculars propped up to let them observe at a distance. They’ve settled right beside an air conditioning unit, leaving the machinery’s bulk to hide them from casual observation.

“We’ll investigate this immediately,” Bruce’s security chief says.

Bruce doubts this is going to be a  _Wayne Enterprises_  issue. It’s too many things at once. Too many seemingly unrelated things. The Order going missing. Duke saying someone was watching him. The break-in at the GCPD. And now this.

“I need to report back to Lucius,” Bruce says. “Let him know what you find out.”

He’s escorted all the way to his car by his increasingly paranoid head of security.

Bruce waits until he’s halfway home before he pulls out his communicator. He keeps it brief--incident at work, no injuries--and urges caution.

He doesn’t relax the whole way home, and he’s not relaxed even when he  _does_  arrive.

The first three incidents were related to Batman, but this incident was related to  _Bruce Wayne_. That means nothing but bad things.


	38. Chapter 38

Bruce doesn’t want Damian on patrol. He doesn’t want  _anyone_  on patrol, but he knows that his concerns are likely to fall on deaf ears when it comes to the older boys.

He tries, at least.

“We should cut back on patrols,” he says that night as Jason starts to head down to the cave. Jason stops short, squinting at him.

“Because we have a stalker? No.”

“This is more than a stalker, Jason,” Bruce says. “If our suspicions are correct...”

“Key word,” Jason says. “ _If_. And if your suspicions  _are_  right, then they already know where we live, so going on patrol or not won’t make any difference.”

“I know I can’t convince you and Slade to stay in,” Bruce says. “But Damian should stay home.”

“Bruce,” Jason says, “I get it. You’re worried. But locking him up isn’t going to change things.”

“It’s not  _locking him up_ ,” Bruce protests. “Running around Gotham in a cape isn’t a  _right_ , Jason. This is for his own safety.”

“Bruce, you already let him  _run around Gotham in a cape._  We’re past the point of trying to pretend like everything we do is for the sake of safety. He’s not a twelve year old kid who’s going to scrap his knee and cry about it. He’s a trained assassin who’s learning to get past his murderous instincts. He can handle himself.”

Bruce clenches his jaw, forcing himself to breath. He just has to explain. He just has to convince Jason.

“The manor has security,” Bruce says. “No one’s getting in without us knowing about it.”

“ _Knowing about it_ isn’t going to stop it from happening,” Jason says. He pauses for a moment, and then reaches out, resting a hand on each of Bruce’s shoulders.

“Bruce,” he says. “I know you’re worried. And you’ve got reasons to be. But Damian’s safe with us. We’re not going to let anyone hurt him. He’s as safe with us as he’s safe here, and the only difference is that out there he doesn’t have you hovering over him. If you try and take this away from him, he  _is_  going to rebel. Trust me.”

The  _I know, I was just like him_  is unspoken, but obvious.

Bruce sighs.

“Just - take care of him, alright?”

He doesn’t know what he’d do if someone got hurt. Damian might have been the worst of it--he’s only a child--but the same extends to everyone else. To Duke and Stephanie. But also to the older generation.

“We’re going to stick to a firm two-person-minimum. Azrael’s going to meet up with us tonight so he’s not solo. Buddy system and all,” Jason says. “If you want to feel better, try doing something.”

“Doing something?” Bruce asks, not sure if he’s supposed to feel offended or not.

“Right now you’re just reacting,” Jason says. “So try being proactive. You’re calmer when you feel like you’re doing things.”

Jason’s not  _wrong_ , and after a moment Bruce nods.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

But deciding to be proactive and actually being proactive are two very different things. The problem is a matter of finding out what he can actually  _do_.

The problem, as Bruce sees it, is that there’s too much difference. There’s no pattern. Every incident seems completely independent of the others, only connected by how close they are in terms of time. Trying to connect them doesn’t give him any leads.

He picks the most suspicious and works on it as an independent event. The break-in at the GCPD should give him  _plenty_  of information, but flipping through almost every single unsolved case in the past six months is exhausting. There’s no connection there either. It feels, as he reads, more like the person didn’t know  _what_  they were looking for, and opted to pull cases at random.

A thought occurs to him, and Bruce double checks before confirming his suspicion: the intruder’s pulled every single case connected to the Wayne family in the past five years. There aren’t many, but they’re all there.

“I think we’re looking at this the wrong way,” Bruce says over the comms as he flips through files. “I don’t think this was about Batman at all.”

“You’re going to have to elaborate,” Slade says in his ear.

“I think whoever this is, they’ve known who we are from the beginning,” Bruce says, flipping through file after file. “We’ve been assuming this was related to Batman and his allies, but it doesn’t seem like it is.”

“Does this change anything?” Tim asks, and Bruce considers for a moment before answering.

“It gives us at least an idea of a suspect pool,” Bruce says. “There aren’t many people with access to that information.”

The list is longer than he’d like, but still relatively short. For the moment, he sets aside allies. He can’t risk alienating anyone by shaking down Thompkins or Lucius, even if they  _do_  know their names.

“Alright,” Barbara says. “Sorry for bringing this up, but... is it possible the Joker told someone before he died?”

The answer is  _yes_ , and everyone knows it.

“If it was going to be anyone,” Bruce says, “I would think it would be Harley.”

There’s no way it can be another infected Joker. Not after four years. Bruce knows the Joker well enough to know there’s no  _way_  he could lie low for four years without a word. And nothing about what they’ve seen says  _the Joker is behind this_.

For that matter, it doesn’t say Harley either, but that doesn’t mean they can rule her out.

“I’ll visit the asylum,” Tim says. “I’ll take Batgirl, give her the whole tour and make sure everyone’s where they should be.”

Bruce is happy Tim volunteered. Even if it’s not Arkham, it’s still too close to home for Jason. He knows Jason avoids it whenever he can, and the idea of Jason having to parade through the asylum to check on Harley Quinn makes his stomach roll.

“Has there been any progress on the search for the order?” Azrael asks, and Bruce winces.

“No,” he admits. “We don’t have much to go on. If you can think of anything else...”

Azrael can’t. He’s never met the people who pulled his strings for so long, and he has nothing to give them that might help them locate the order.

Tim and Stephanie check in an hour later, shattering Bruce’s hopes. He  _hoped_  it was Harley. If Harley or anyone else was missing, they’d have a solid lead. But everyone’s firmly where they should be.

“We even checked all the closets and storage rooms,” Tim says. “Just to make sure. But there’s nothing. Staff are  _way_  more friendly than they used to be.”

"Considering how corrupt they used to be, I’m not surprised,” Jason says. “Once you’ve cleaned house once, you start looking to hire people who  _aren’t_  going to end up in the pocket of an inmate.”

“They were corrupt?” Damian asks.

“Absolutely awful,” Jason says.

“Key word is  _were_ ,” Stephanie says. “Cleaned right up when someone went through the really corrupt ones like a buzz-saw through a tree.”

Bruce winces. Why are they talking about this? Why are they having a conversation about this over comms with Jason listening? He can only imagine how uncomfortable Jason must be.

“Actually,” Jason says. “More like a buzz saw through a thanksgiving turkey.”

Bruce feels like he’s going crazy. Why are they bantering about that? And why is Jason joining in?

Bruce clears his throat, and makes a point of making sure the comm picks it up.

“What am I missing,” Damian says, sounding annoyed. “You’re all talking about something I don’t know about.”

“It’s not something we should be talking about,” Bruce says.

There’s silence on the line, and Bruce realizes, very suddenly, that Damian is within spitting distance of both Jason  _and_  Slade, who have gone mysteriously silent.

“Cat's out of the bag now,” Tim says.

“This isn’t-” Bruce starts, and then makes a small strangled noise of frustration. Damian doesn’t need to know that.

But he doesn’t get a choice. All he can do is sit there, the silence dragging out, imagining the conversation that must be happening. It seems to go on  _forever_ , with only the occasional small update from Tim or Stephanie.

There’s a soft  _ping_  on the comms which means someone’s opened a private channel, and he reaches up, focusing on that rather than the currently silent main line.

“Bruce?” Slade asks.

“No nam-”

“Bruce,” Slade says. “We’re going to be coming back early.”

Bruce feels sick. He has no idea why, but the way Slade says is--solemn and serious--tells him something’s wrong.

“What’s going on?” Bruce asks, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

“No one’s dead,” Slade says. “But Damian was crying a bit, and he’s having a heart to heart with Jason right now, and I doubt we’re going to get anything else done tonight.”

“Just tell me what’s happening.”

“You need to talk to Damian about your kill rule,” Slade says. “Because he’s convinced that you’re going to hate him when you find out he’s killed people before.”

Bruce forgets how to breath.

He knew. Deep down he  _knew_ , because it’s the League of Assassins and that’s what they  _do_ , but a big part of him didn’t want to believe it. Didn’t want to believe they’d actually make a  _child_  kill someone.

“I don’t hate him,” Bruce says, alarmed by the desperation in his voice.

“Pretty sure Jason’s telling him that right now,” Slade says. “But he needs to hear it from you. One of the only things he knew about you was your  _code_ , and he’s spent this whole time convinced that if you ever found out the  _sordid truth_  that you’d throw him out of the house and disown him or something.”

Every word feels like a kick to the gut.

“I’ll be waiting,” Bruce says. “Just... just tell him we can talk when he gets back.”

“I’ll let him know,” Slade says, and the private line drops.

Bruce sits in silence, alone in the cave, and waits for Damian to come home.


	39. Chapter 39

Bruce doesn’t have the conversation in the cave. When Jason and Slade return, Damian’s behind them, still in his uniform. He’s almost hiding behind them.

“Damian?” Bruce asks. “Why don’t we go up to your room to talk.”

Damian slinks out from behind Jason, his eyes down.

“Yes, father,” he says, his voice whisper quiet.

He looks smaller than he should, and Bruce doesn’t complain of the costume in the house as he guides him upstairs.

They sit on the side of Damian’s bed. The room looks more personalized, with furniture Damian’s picked out with Alfred’s help, but it’s only just beginning to look lived in. It’s only just starting to look like home.

"Do you want to talk about it?” Bruce asks quietly.

Damian shakes his head.

“Alright,” Bruce says after a moment. “Do you mind if I talk?”

Damian shakes his head again.

“My code is... for me. It’s important to me. A line in the sand I can’t let myself cross.”

Things would be easier if Damian would ask questions. If he’d ask  _why is it important_  or  _what do you think about that_ , but instead he’s forced to guess at what Damian’s thinking about.

He’s not a very good guesser.

“When I started, I didn’t have a code. I hurt a lot of people. Gotham was... truly lawless back then. I chose not to kill then because I wanted to win over the police. I wanted to be on the same side as people like Jim. But over time I started to realize that it was  _important_  that I didn’t kill people. I realized that because I started to realize that I  _wanted_  to. I wanted to kill people. I looked at people like the Joker, or Black Mask, or any number of other people and I thought to myself  _it would be better if they were dead_.”

Damian breaks his silence for the first time.

“It would,” he says quietly, but he doesn’t say anything more.

Bruce rests a hand on Damian’s shoulder, and then changes his mind and instead wraps it around his back, leaning against him.

“Maybe,” Bruce says. “But there’s a lot of reasons why I can’t make that choice. Why I can’t--and  _shouldn’t_ \--be the one making that choice. The Joker’s killed hundreds of people. I think most people would agree he should have been killed. But what about someone like Slade?”

“Like Slade?” Damian says, his eyes briefly flicking up.

“He’s killed a lot of people too,” Bruce says. “Maybe not as many as the Joker, but a lot of people.”

“They weren't innocents.”

“Some were,” Bruce corrects. He’s under no illusions. He knows how Slade works. He knows what he’s done.

Damian mulls it over for a long moment.

“Maybe he should too,” Damian says, and Bruce takes a deep breath. He has to keep calm. Has to be nice and even and  _level_ if he wants Damian to understand.

“Do you think he’s as bad as the Joker?”

“No.”

“But he still deserves to die.”

Damian is silent for a long while, and Bruce lets them sit in silence.

“No,” he finally says.

“Why?”

“Because he changed,” Damian says, and Bruce feels a swell of pride. It feels  _good_  to watch Damian draw the same conclusions he did, to come to the same realizations. “He’s not like that anymore.”

“He still kills people,” Bruce reminds him. He doesn’t need to say  _he killed the league._  Damian knows.

“He kills  _bad_  people,” Damian says quietly. “I don’t think... I don’t think he’d kill an innocent person. Maybe he did before, but I don’t think he would now.”

Bruce actually has to pause himself. He’s not sure about that, and he wonders if maybe he’s going to need to sit down with Slade and actually  _ask_. Slade would probably laugh at the idea, but he lets the conversation move on anyway.

“So he changed,” Bruce says. “He got better.”

Damian nods.

“That’s one of the reasons I don’t want to kill anyone,” Bruce says. “Someone who’s locked up can get better. They can become a better person. Someone who’s dead is dead forever. It’s something you can’t take back.”

Damian frowns, the idea not quite settling with him.

“Even someone like the Joker?”

Bruce pauses, and Damian jumps in immediately.

“Jason told me about what happened,” he says. “That the Joker took him. I don’t think... I don’t think someone who would do that can be fixed.”

“Maybe he couldn’t have been,” Bruce says. “But I don’t know that for sure. I’m not a doctor. I’m not an expert. So I don’t make that decision. I don’t decide whether someone might be able to be redeemed. I leave that to the courts.”

“And if they decide to kill them...?”

“Then they’ve had a trial,” Bruce says. “A jury of their peers. That’s a lot more than just me.”

He isn’t going to get into the fact that the Joker was insane. It’s an unnecessary part of the discussion, because the entire conversation could work just as well with any number of people who end up at Blackgate rather than the asylum when they get arrested.

“But you’re a good judge,” Damian says.

Bruce lets out a small laugh.

“No, not really,” he admits. “I’m human. I make mistakes. Ra’s thought highly of my abilities, but I could never be  _truly_  impartial. I could never trust myself to make a decision like whether or not someone deserves to die. What if I made a mistake? What if I killed someone because they’d done some truly terrible thing, and then they turned out to have been innocent?”

Damian sits in silence, but he’s not staring at his feet at least. He’s looking, somewhat warily, up at Bruce’s face. Scrutinizing him. Judging him. Trying to weigh his words against what he’s been taught.

“What about Jason?” Damian finally says. “He’s killed people.”

“He has,” Bruce admits. “And I’m not going to say I’m completely fine with that. It still bothers me a bit sometimes. I wish he hadn’t. But... it’s more I wish he’d never been put in a situation where he had to. It’s  _sad_  when someone kills someone. It’s sad when they feel they have to.”

“I don’t think it’s sad,” Damian mumbles to himself. “I think it’s just... it’s bad.  _They’re_  bad.”

Bruce knows  _exactly_  what he’s getting at, and he gives Damian’s shoulder a little squeeze.

“You’re not bad, Damian,” Bruce says. “Even if you did kill someone. Even if you killed a  _lot_  of people. That was how you were raised. You did what you thought was right.”

“But I shouldn’t have-” Damian says, his voice cracking.

Bruce leans down, pressing a kiss to the top of Damian’s head.

“It doesn’t matter who has or hasn’t killed,” Bruce says. “What matters is who is or isn’t  _going_  to kill. The  _future_  matters.”

Damian buries his face against Bruce’s chest, and Bruce wraps his arms around his back, letting him rest there.

“I’m not going to say there’s always another way. I’ve been lucky. Sometimes there’s no choice, and that’s something that should be mourned. But some people come too easily to the conclusion that the only way is to kill. They look at a problem and only see  _killing_  and  _not killing._ When someone escapes, the answer shouldn’t be  _then kill him so they can’t escape again_. The solution should be  _build a better prison_.”

“What if they escape again?”

“Then you make it even better. You keep trying. That’s... that’s part of being Batman. That’s part of being a Robin. Getting back up, even when you get knocked down.”

“Part of being a Shrike,” Damian says quietly, and Bruce reaches up, ruffling a hand through his hair.

“Part of being a Shrike,” he agrees.

“Slade says...” Damian says quietly, faltering before he continues. “He said you already knew I... what I’d done.”

Bruce isn’t quite sure how to answer it. It takes him a moment to decide, his hand running down Damian’s back, physically  _feeling_  Damian relax as they talk. Feeling the tension ease out of his shoulders.

“I think I was trying not to think about it. It isn’t... I don’t think anyone your age should have  _ever_  had to kill someone. It hurts a bit to think that you had to. To think about... about how things were for you. But I meant what I said, when I said you could tell me anything. Even something like this. So if you want to talk about it...”

Damian shakes his head.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “But if you want to talk... I can.”

“Jason would be better,” Damian says, muffled by Bruce’s chest. “Or Slade.”

Bruce winces, but he can’t argue.

“Probably,” he admits. “I’m aware I have a very... black and white view of things at times.”

Bruce presses another kiss to the top of his head, letting Damian sit there in silence.

“I’m... happy you don’t hate me, father,” Damian says, and Bruce gives him another squeeze.

“Of course not,” Bruce says. “You’re my son.”

Bruce never  _quite_  gets himself out of the room. He keeps planning to--to get up and tell Damian he should change and go to sleep--but Damian ends up nodding off against him, exhausted from patrol. Bruce can’t quite bring himself to wake Damian up. He settles for leaning back, Damian still resting against him, and letting himself fall asleep right there.


	40. Chapter 40

Bruce wakes, confused, to find that he’s not in his room. It takes a few moments to register where he  _actually_  is--Damian’s room--and that he’s still in some very rumpled clothes.

Damian’s no longer curled against him, taking up space on the other side of the bed instead. He’s in his pajamas, under the covers, and looks asleep enough that Bruce is  _moderately_  sure he isn’t faking.

He takes care to slide out of bed without waking him, though he’s not convinced he’s actually managed, and he takes care to close the bedroom door behind him with as little noise as possible.

He doesn’t know what time it is until he reaches the kitchen and finds Alfred preparing breakfast.

“Excellent,” Alfred says. “I was worried you would miss the morning meal without your alarm to wake you up.”

“So was I,” Bruce admits. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Master Jason has already left for work,” Alfred says. “Mister Wilson is currently running through his routine in the cave, but I imagine he’ll come up for breakfast shortly.”

“Hmm,” Bruce says quietly. “Maybe I’ll check in on him.”

He leaves Alfred to his work and heads down into the cave. He’s not surprised to see Slade training, but he  _is_  a bit surprised to see him using his sword. He favored the staff in combat before, and Bruce doesn’t think he’s  _ever_  seen the Gotham Knight use a sword.

“Rusty?” Bruce asks as he comes down the stairs. Slade doesn’t miss a beat, working his way through his routine.

“Need to figure out how to soften his instincts,” Slade says. “He’s still overly brutal with a sword in his hand, but that’s where his strength in combat lies.”

Bruce watches Slade long enough to register that almost all his strikes are non-lethal ones. There’s an emphasis on using the back of the blade, or even the handle, and not so much the blade.

“Easier to correct what he has,” Slade says even as he finishes up his routine, “than try and make him forget it entirely.”

He sheaths the sword, and Bruce leans back against the wall, watching him pack away his gear.

“You two talk?” Slade asks, as if the answer wasn’t obvious.

Bruce nods, and then realizes he’s standing on Slade’s blind side. He probably can’t see a damn thing, so he corrects himself, answering verbally.

“We talked,” Bruce says. “I explained... my reason for the code. How I feel about it. That I’m not throwing anyone out of the house over the things they’ve done.”

“You’d think I’d be proof of that,” Slade says with a small laugh.

“You came up as an example,” Bruce says. “He seems to think quite highly of you.”

“Hopefully not  _too_  highly,” Slade says as he heads around the corner into the showers.

Bruce stands just outside to continue the conversation while giving Slade his privacy.

“He started out with  _we should just kill all the bad people_ , and I walked him through  _people can change_  and  _you can’t always know for sure_. We had a brief pit-stop at  _if you’re killing all the people who’ve killed someone, doesn’t that include Slade?_ ”

“And I’m assuming, based on you telling me this, that he decided the answer was no.”

“He started with  _maybe we should kill him_  and then walked himself down to  _he’s not like that anymore_.”

Even over the sound of the water, Bruce can hear Slade snort.

“Did you point out-”

“Yes,” Bruce says. “I pointed out you still kill people.”

Bruce doesn’t like it, but he likes to think he’s at least self-aware enough not to look away from the truth.

“What’d he say to that?”

“That he didn’t think you’d hurt  _innocent_  people. He drew the line between killing people like the League of Assassins and hurting innocents.”

Bruce is  _genuinely_  curious as to what Slade’s going to say. He knows very little about Slade’s activities out of Gotham more or less by design. The less Slade talked about it, the less he had to think about it. He  _likes_  Slade, and thinking about what he was doing when he wasn’t in Gotham was... unpleasant.

“Mmm,” Slade says. “Well, he’s wrong. I’ve gotten more picky about my jobs, but I don’t think it’s possible for anyone who kills  _anyone_  to say for sure they don’t kill innocents. Life’s not black and white enough for that. You kill some scum sucking gangster and it turns out he’s got an innocent wife and kids at home who are devastated by their loss.”

It’s probably the one reason he can accept Slade still doing what he does: because he’s  _aware_. He never pretends to be self-righteous. He never pretends he’s doing the right thing. He  _knows_  he’s doing a bad thing, and he does it anyway.

“Picky?” Bruce asks before he can stop himself.

“Like the thing with the militia,” Slade says.

“Are you going to explain what that was?” Bruce asks. He has no idea what  _the militia_  is, and he doesn’t have enough context clues to even take a half decent guess.

“Back when he was the Arkham Knight,” Slade says, “Jason was in charge of a whole militia. The plan involved emptying Gotham out with a fear gas attack, and then rolling them in to take the city. Spent about a year recruiting them and training them. Even had tanks. But then the plan went sideways, and it was obvious it wasn’t going to happen. Ended up selling their contracts and all the gear to a guy overseas. From what I understand they bounced around a bit, but when I left it was because my broker got a contract from the guy who  _currently_  is running them, and wanted to hire me to lead them for a bit.”

Bruce is taken aback. Jason ran a  _militia_? He had his own  _private army he was going to use against Gotham_? He knew there was a plan, but he never really had an idea of the  _scale_  of it.

Slade emerges in a towel, starting to dress as Bruce tries to digest the information he’s just been given.

“Anyway,” Slade says. “Guy’s Bialyan. Left the country when he was a kid as a refugee, and now that he’s rich, he’s decided to come back and do some humanitarian work. Considering how corrupt the Bialyan government is,  _humanitarian effort_  means marching his own personal army into the country. They’d got a small foothold on the south end before he pulled me in. Reorganized the army, marched them north, we took a quarter before we stopped.”

Slade has always struck Bruce as more of a  _lone gun_. The idea of him at the head of an army feels... weird. Out of place.

“I never took you as a commander,” Bruce admits as he averts his eyes, letting Slade get dressed without an audience.

“Lots of things you don’t know about me,” Slade says. “Either way, the  _real_  reason he wanted me was so when I was done reorganizing, he could send me north to destroy the Bialyan air force. Grounded every jet and bomber they had to make sure they couldn’t try and air strike our guys. Debated popping Bialya’s president, but decided it was better to leave them. They’re  _awful_  at military tactics, and their successor isn’t likely to be half as bad as they are. Better to leave them where they are and let the armies handle it.”

There’s something surreal about listening to Slade talk about toppling an entire regime like it’s no more effort than going to pick up some milk at the store. He’s so  _casual_  about it.

“I can’t believe I’m just listening to you talk about this,” Bruce mutters under his breath.

“Neither can I,” Slade says with a laugh. “Kind of expected you to burst into flames if I mentioned murder too much.”

Bruce grunts.

“What else...” Slade says, and Bruce is pretty sure he’s taking some kind of weird joy from talking all about it and throwing Bruce off.

“Before that it was a politician over in Europe who was getting blackmailed by the mafia. They were twisting his arm. Guy said he was totally innocent, and I don’t think I believe that, but money’s money and the guys I was going after were some  _real_  awful people,” Slade says, making Bruce wince.

“Before that... oh, that’s one you’d like. Remember not last Christmas, but the one before that?”

“Where you came back sulking?” Bruce asks, raising his eyebrow.

“One, I don’t sulk.  _You_  sulk. I was annoyed. I got a nice fat contract from some crime lord over on the west coast who wanted me to fight their local vigilante. Packed up all my gear, carted my ass across the entire of the United States, and you know what he wanted me to do?”

Slade raises his eyebrows, and Bruce realizes he  _actually_  wants Bruce to guess.

“Kill him?”

“No,” Slade says. “I had already told him I wasn’t interested in killing the guy. Keeping him busy? Sure. But I’m not going to kill someone’s equivalent of Batman and get you and every other masked vigilante in the country after my ass. He said that wasn’t going to be an issue, so I get all the way out there and then the guy sits me down in his office and shows me a picture of this kid--maybe sixteen or seventeen--and tells me I’m going to kidnap the guy. Says he’s the true identity of the vigilante’s sidekick. Turns out  _he’s_  doing the teenage sidekick thing too, got his own little Robin.”

Bruce  _knows_  how that went. Even before Slade says it, he knows there’s a body count.

“Killed that guy,” Slade says. “Killed his under-boss. Killed his lieutenants. Pretty sure I killed everyone who knew the kid’s identity, collapsed the entire organization, and anyone I  _didn’t_  get no doubt realized that if they’d tried anything I’d have come after them. He’s still running around doing the vigilante thing last I checked, so I guess the lesson stuck.”

“And of course no one had any idea  _why_  you murdered almost an entire organized crime group,” Bruce says with a sigh.

“Everyone probably thinks one of their rivals hired me,” Slade confirms. “Better they think that than know the actual truth of it.”

Bruce isn’t quite sure he agrees on that point, if only because Jim was absolutely furious when it happened. Jim can barely tolerate Slade when he’s not doing anything, let alone when he’s flying cross-country to wipe out entire organizations.

“So what I’m getting out of this,” Bruce says, “is that you spend a lot of time helping people for large amounts of cash and pretending like you’re still the grizzled mercenary you used to be.”

“I’m  _old_ ,” Slade protests. “Nothing wrong with settling back and letting myself enjoy my retirement.”

“Only you would consider yourself  _retired_  while you spend every other night running around Gotham getting into fights with criminals.”

“The criminals of Gotham aren’t anything close to what I’m used to fighting,” Slade points out. “They’re muggers and thieves. Maybe the occasional gangster. I used to fight people who were  _actually_  dangerous. This is retirement.”

“Have you considered  _actually_  retiring? No more side jobs?”

Bruce has thought about it a lot. He’s just not sure Slade has.

“Sure,” Slade says. “Thought about it. But I decided that I’d miss it too much. There’s a thrill to it, Bruce. You’ve never let yourself taste it, because you’d be the same as me. You’d  _enjoy_  it. But I’m not afraid to admit I like it. The only way I’m retiring is if I  _have_  to retire, and you looking at me, batting your eyelashes, and asking really nicely isn’t a  _have to retire_  situation.”

Of course not. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy.

“We should probably get upstairs,” Bruce says. “Before Alfred decides we’re just not eating.”

“He probably already has,” Slade says, slapping him on the back. “But I figure if we form a combined front he’ll relent and feed us, even if we  _were_  late.”

Bruce laughs at that, and heads upstairs.


	41. Chapter 41

Bruce takes Damian to the Academy for testing. He debates cancelling it entirely, but decides that there still hasn’t been an actual _attack_. No one’s been hurt, as far as they know. The order’s the great big question mark, since Bruce can’t consider them  _allies_ having never spoken to them.

Especially considering that he knows what they’ve done to Azrael.

He checks in with Tim while he waits, watching the windows to the room Damian’s taking his test in out of sheer paranoia.

“How’s Michael?”

“Adjusting,” Tim says. “He’s been living out of an apartment the order pays for. Tried tracing that back, but there’s nothing to follow. Landlord described the guy who pays as  _bland_ , says he pays in cash. Hasn’t seen him lately. Everything’s pretty much under the table.”

Bruce regrets not being able to give Michael his full attention. He  _should_ , because Azrael’s been an ally for years, but it simply strikes too close to home.

“He said he wanted to talk to Cash,” Tim says, and Bruce raises his eyebrows.

“What does Cash have to do with it...?” He’s not even sure if they’re talking about the same person.

“Apparently that was his partner,” Tim says. “They were close. Or Michael thinks they were close. I’m not really sure Cash feels the same way, but I figure any connection’s better than none. Got Barb to pull the case file for me.”

“What happened?” He knows Azrael used to be police, but actually knowing what went down is something else entirely.

“Didn’t get all the details,” Tim says. “Lost his family in a home invasion gone wrong. Ended up killing the guy who did it when he caught up with him. Got fired and the trail goes cold. Cash was his partner, ended up leaving the force entirely after it all went down. Then he hopped to Arkham’s guard staff.”

Which is where Bruce met him. He nods briefly, mulling it over.

“I figure it can’t hurt to try,” Tim says. “I’ll supervise. But I need to get back to class, my lunch break’s almost over.”

“Tim,” Bruce says, and Tim stops in his tracks, glancing back at him.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.”

Tim nods and heads back inside.

The test’s supposed to take two hours, but he’s only been there forty minutes when one of the school’s staff emerges from the front door, heading straight for him.

“Mr. Wayne?” The man calls. Bruce looks him over and decides he was wrong. He’s not a member of the school’s staff, or at least not one he’s familiar with. He’s either new, or he’s been brought out just for the test.

“Yes?” He asks, fully turning

“I think we’re going to have to ask you to come back again next week.”

Bruce feels his stomach sink. Damian should have been alone, shouldn’t he? So what’s gone wrong?

Apparently his worry shows on his face, because the man immediately waves his hands.

“Oh no no,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong. Quite the opposite. We won’t be able to actually grade the test for a few more days, but your son finished so quickly we did some initial checks just to make sure he hadn’t... well, handed in a blank test.”

“And he did well?”

The man shakes his head.

“ _Well_  doesn’t begin to cover it. He’s almost certainly beyond a middle school level. He might even be through high school. You said he was home-schooled...?”

“Not by me,” Bruce says before the man can start drilling him on his education technique.

“Whoever it is, they did an excellent job. But we will need you to come back.”

“Of course,” Bruce says. “You can just have the school call me.”

Damian arrives a few minutes later, looking pleased with himself as he heads down to Bruce’s side. 

“They lectured me on ‘throwing away my chance’ when I told them I was finished. They refused to believe I was finished already.”

The poor administrator looks embarrassed, clearing his throat.

“This sort of result is... unusual,” he admits. “But you should be very proud.”

Damian  _does_  look very proud, and Bruce makes a point of resting a hand on his shoulder, giving him a smile.

“I knew you could do it,” he says. “You’ve got a new test to utterly demolish next week too.”

“Of course,” Damian says.

Bruce takes him out for a late lunch, settling into a booth and letting Damian order what he wants. He frowns at more or less the entire menu, but does end up enjoying a milkshake.

“Father,” Damian says, obviously working himself up to something. Bruce braces himself, keeping his expression even. If Damian’s working himself up to saying something, it means he’s worried about the reaction he’s going to get.

“Yes?” Bruce asks, working his way through his lunch.

“If you are searching for the order, have you checked churches?”

“...Churches?” Bruce is wary of discussing anything _business related_  in public, but the conversation is general enough that someone would need to know  _exactly_  who they were and what they were discussing to derive any meaning from it.

“The order is a religious organization,” Damian points out before pausing for a slurp of his milkshake. “It seems appropriate they would have taken shelter in a church, of which there are many in Gotham.”

Bruce isn’t sure how  _religious_  the order really is, but there’s certainly elements there, and he considers for a moment.

“No,” Bruce says. “We haven’t checked. But it’s a good idea, and something we can act on.”

Damian seems even happier with the praise than he did finding out he might be able to skip over school entirely.


	42. Chapter 42

Gotham, as it turns out, has a  _lot_  of churches. Bruce knows plenty, but when he actually searches, the number seems to explode. Even checking several a night wouldn’t come up with anything, so Bruce ends up passing a tip to Jim instead. Let them know about any odd church-based activity. Follow up any leads. Jim thanks him for the information and goes back to work.

Jason catches him before dinner, looking relatively solemn. 

“Can we talk?” Jason asks, and Bruce wonders how many times he’s going to hear that exact sentiment. It feels like a  _lot_.

“Of course,” Bruce says, and ducks into his office, assuming Jason wants some level of privacy.

But Jason leaves the door open, which means it’s not  _that_  private.

“I was thinking about moving back into the manor,” Jason says. “Now that Slade’s back. It’s easier working out of the cave, for one.”

“Of course,” Bruce says, needing absolutely no convincing. “I think Damian would like having you around as well. He’d do better with a... with an older brother looking out for him.”

“Good,” Jason says. “Good. I’ll go pick up my stuff. Don’t have much to move or anything.”

“If you need help,” Bruce says. “Just let me know.”

Jason doesn’t, heading out of the office. Bruce isn’t sure how he went from two people in the house to five, but he’s certainly not complaining. The house feels a lot less empty with so many people around.

He gets a call from Jim midway through dinner. Jim  _knows_  his hours, and he knows he wouldn’t call without reason, so he starts to excuse himself before Jason waves him off.

“Just put him on speaker,” Jason says, and Bruce sighs, setting the phone down.

“Jim,” he says. “You’re on speaker.”

“In polite company?” Jim asks, which means  _is there anyone I should be worried about listening in_?

“No one you need to worry about,” he says, eyes sliding over to Slade. Jim lets out a grunt, knowing exactly what Bruce is thinking of, even if he’s not willing to ask  _is Deathstroke there?_

“I followed up on your lead,” Jim says. “Someone called in a tip on Sunday. Said they went to their usual church for Sunday service, but the whole place was locked up. No signs or anything. Said he thought it was unusual, but didn’t think it was that important.”

It’s the kind of tip that  _wouldn’t_ be important in any other circumstance.

“What’d you find?”

“Totally empty,” Jim says. “Building registration comes back to a fake ID. No sign of foul play or forced entry. Looks like whoever was there simply vanished.”

“Independent church?” Jason asks.

“No connection to any existing organization,” Jim confirms. “We don’t have a ton of resources to spend chasing up this lead for you, but if you want to go poke around...”

“Of course,” Bruce says. “We’ll get someone over there.”

“I’ll send you the address,” Jim says. “But I need to get back to work.”

Bruce says a goodbye, hanging up the phone before Slade can do the same. He gets a grin for his efforts, and Bruce huffs.

“We’re going,” Jason says. “Tim can play around with his sidekick, but this one’s all us.”

“And Michael?” Slade asks, glancing to Jason.

“Leave him with Tim,” Jason says. “I’d rather take a good look at things on our own before we ask his advice.”

“Not a bad idea,” Bruce says. “And Damian-”

“I’m going,” Damian insists. “I was hardly out half the night last night.”

“I was  _going_  to say that you should leave the sword at home,” Bruce says. “When it comes to breaking and entering, your small size will be an advantage, but that’s going to be hindered by you carrying a sword that’s almost the size of you.”

Damian huffs, but he  _does_  leave the sword behind that night.

Bruce stays in the cave, listening to radio chatter as he coordinates.

There’s nothing on the ground floor, but Slade determines that the large open space of the church’s main hall isn’t  _quite_  large enough. There’s some sort of attic, and when there’s no obvious way in from the inside, Slade settles for cutting his way through a weak spot on the roof.

“We’ve got bodies,” Slade says as he pops his head in.

“Don’t let Shrike-” Bruce starts, only to get cut off.

“Batman,” Jason says. “He’s already seen them, and he has as much reaction to them as I do. He’s seen a dead body before.”

“Wait, did Batman just talk to Batman?” Comes Stephanie’s voice, and Bruce grunts. He didn’t even realize she was on the channel.

“Isn’t tonight your night off?” Bruce asks.

“Well, yeah, but I’m studying, and this is way more interesting to listen to than any podcast I’ve ever heard of.”

“New was talking to old,” Slade says.

“Could we keep this channel clear?” Bruce asks. That’s one major downside of having so many people: the channel gets  _busy_  during patrol.

“What are we looking at?” Bruce prompts when everyone goes silent.

“Seven bodies,” Jason says.

“Eight,” Damian corrects. “Varying times of death. One’s starting to rot. Another one seems fresh.”

Bruce tries not to think of Damian inspecting dead bodies.

“Quick guess from the scene,” Jason says. “There’s a door here we missed when we searched before. Hidden passage down. Someone in the church comes up, opens the door, and gets jumped by whoever was staying here. Then their body gets added to the pile.”

“Is it the Order?” Bruce asks.

“Big mystical looking symbol painted on the wall,” Slade confirms. “So I’m going with yes.”

Bruce wonders if Michael is listening in, but neither Tim  _nor_  him have made themselves known. Only Stephanie.

He listens as they work their way through the scene, reporting what they find, but there’s only so much  _to_  find. They’ve all had some amount of training in detective work, but that’s very different from being an actual coroner or a crime scene investigator.

“Do we have a cause of death?” Bruce asks, hoping to get an idea of what they’re dealing with.

“Some kind of blade,” Jason says. “Most were killed pretty quickly. Blade across the throat. There’s a  _lot_  of dry blood up here.”

“Alright,” Bruce says. “When you’re done, open that hidden door from the inside and I’ll let Jim know to send out another patrol to check it out.”

He doesn’t need to remind them not to leave any trace.

They’ve left to head to their usual patrol route when Stephanie weighs in.

“So,” she says. “I meant what I said. It’s kind of confusing having two Batmen, you know.”

“The new one is the one that counts,” Bruce says. “I’m only back temporarily.”

“I mean, you are on comms all the time,” Slade points out. “Especially with so many people to organize.”

“I agree,” Damian says, and Bruce can practically hear the  _father_  that he stops himself from saying. “You should have a new name to avoid any possible confusion as to who we’re speaking about.”

Bruce grunts. He’s passed on the mantle. There’s no reason to keep it. But it’s not like he has any better ideas.

“I’m open to suggestions,” he finally says.

“Xu'ffasch,” Damian says immediately. “It means Bat.”

“I’m not sure half of us can pronounce that properly,” Stephanie says. “I sure can’t.”

“Just call him B,” Slade says. “When you retire you lose the rest of your name.”

Bruce can  _hear_ Jason laughing in the background when Damian starts talking.

“He should be Detective.”

“Oh no,” Bruce intervenes. “We are not calling me Detective.”

Bruce is not letting  _Ra’s al Ghul_  be in charge of his name.

“I think B sounds fine,” Stephanie says. “This is only temporary, right?”

Bruce doesn’t know the answer to that. He feels a lot more at peace listening in.

“Just stick with B,” Jason says. “Quick and easy. No confusion.”

Bruce can’t  _actually_  think of anything better, so he ends up sticking with B.

He tells himself that it’s only temporary, but it doesn’t feel  _true_.


	43. Chapter 43

Bruce lets the police know about the church and focuses his attention on patrol. What they have is just one more piece of the puzzle, but it’s not the  _key_  piece. It doesn’t tell them what they should be looking for, or who’s behind it.

It tells him that whoever they’re after is skilled, but that’s a detail they already knew. The only  _really_  relevant bit of information is that they’re skilled with bladed weapons, but that hardly narrows things down at all.

They still have no leads.

Bruce is handling work the next day when his communicator beeps, and he pops it into his ear.

“Hear me out,” Barbara says immediately.

Bruce grunts. He doesn’t like where this is going. Anything you have to preface with  _hear me out_  isn’t likely to be good.

“I’m listening,” Bruce says.

“Ditto,” Tim says, only to be very quickly joined by Damian, Dick,  _and_  Duke.

“This was going to be a private chat!” Barbara protests.

“If you wanted it to be a private chat,” Tim points out, “you’d have put it on a private line.”

“You had something to say?” Bruce asks.

“Oh, right,” Barbara says. “So, I had a suggestion for your name.”

“What’s wrong with B?” Dick asks. “I think it’s just fine.”

“Of course you think it’s fine,” Barbara protests. “It’s one letter. He needs something more sophisticated.”

“It would be appreciated if you would say your suggestion,” Damian says.

“Sonar. It’s technology based, works with the bat theme, and fits your new role better. You guide them, and you’re always in everyone’s ear.”

“I like it,” Tim says. “It fits you.”

“Sounds a  _bit_  similar to Signal,” Dick says, “but I like it too.”

Bruce expects to hear Jason or Slade weigh in, but both are silent. It strikes him as odd, because Slade’s  _always_  the first one to weigh in on things.

Bruce steps out of his office, going to find Alfred.

“Have you heard from Slade?” Bruce asks when he finds him, leaving Barbara hanging.

“He left with Master Jason to empty his apartment,” Alfred says. “Quite a few hours ago.”

“And we haven’t heard from him?” Bruce asks, knowing the answer.

“No, not yet. I imagine they’ll be home soon.”

Bruce feels increasingly nervous as he dials Jason. There’s no response. When he dials Slade, there’s no response there either.

“Has anyone heard from Batman?” Bruce asks into the comms.

“Is this an elaborate way of saying you’re going with Sonar?” Barbara asks.

“A genuine question,” Bruce says.

“Not since last night,” Barbara says. “Should we be worried?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Bruce admits. “I’ll let you know.”

They haven’t been gone long, but their complete radio silence is frying Bruce’s nerves. Things are tense enough  _without_  them going missing.

He paces the main hallway until Damian arrives, peering around the corner.

“Are you worried, father?” Damian asks after a few minutes of watching him pace the front hallway.

“Yes,” he admits. “It’s not like them to be out of contact. There’s no reason they shouldn’t have a communicator on them.”

Either something’s happened to the communicator, or something’s happened to  _them,_ and the fact that he was literally just speaking to Barbara means the connection’s still strong.

Bruce worries he’s going to wear a hole in the floor. He doesn’t want to make a big deal of something that might be a simple technical glitch, but every minute they don’t hear from them makes him that much more alarmed.

The house’s security system beeps, and Bruce checks it immediately. Jason’s just punched his code in at the front gate.

Bruce lets himself breathe.

“It was nothing to be worried about, father,” Damian says, but he doesn’t actually move to leave. Instead he stands by Bruce’s side, waiting for Jason to come inside.

Jason  _slams_  the front door open so hard that Bruce jumps. Damian doesn’t  _jump_ , but his hand does go down to his side, reaching for a dagger he doesn’t have.

Or  _probably_  doesn’t have. Bruce isn’t sure, and it doesn’t matter right then.

“Bruce!” Jason says. “You need to turn off your communicator right now.”

Bruce doesn’t ask why before he reaches up to disable it. Jason’s obviously frantic, making it clear that whatever his reasons, it can't possibly wait.

“What’s going on?” Damian asks, but he’s already pulling his own out.

“Someone has one of our communicators,” Jason says. He’s speaking a mile a minute, blurting it out at record speed, and yet Bruce feels like he’s somehow not speaking fast  _enough_.

“Where’s Slade?” Bruce asks immediately.

“Gone to tell Tim,” Jason says. “Then he’s going to tell Dick, and then he’ll come back.”

“He shouldn’t have been left alone.” Every bit of panic that had started to go away has come back full force.

“One of us had to go,” Jason says. “Someone had to come back and tell you about it.”

“How do you know all this?” Damian asks, his focus obvious.

“When we got to my apartment, everything was fine,” Jason says. “No sign of anyone breaking in, no sign of anything weird. Security system checked out. But when I started packing, one of the communicators was missing. And when I started looking around, I realized someone had been  _in_  there.”

“In your apartment?” Bruce asks. He’s never even been. He struggles to imagine what it would be like. It was supposed to be Jason’s private space, just for him.

And now someone’s been inside.

“I checked the security logs,” Jason says. “The system was reset a week ago. Whatever alert would have gone off was just erased.”

A week. Bruce wracks his brain, trying to remember everything that’s been discussed. Did anyone’s name get said? No, he’s pretty sure they didn’t. But there are so many details coming and going that he’s sure there’s  _plenty_  someone listening to their comms must know.

It’s the worst they’ve ever been compromised.


	44. Chapter 44

The next two hours are spent in a near-panic. Barbara shows up, followed shortly after by Tim, with both Michael and an alarmed looking Stephanie in tow. Barbara gets to work setting up a new communication system, because cellphones can’t be trusted, but there’s an obvious wariness about the whole thing. If they’ve been compromised once, they could be compromised twice.  
  
Dick and Duke show up just after dark, with Slade in tow.  
  
“That’s everyone,” Slade says as he comes down into the cave. “I already briefed them.”

 _Everyone_  is down in the cave, even Alfred, and Stephanie and Duke keep glancing over towards him, clearly uncertain why there’s a butler in the cave.

“I don’t think I need to say that this is bad,” Bruce says. “I think we all know that. If someone’s been listening into our comms channel, that means they have a lot of information. But more importantly, the fact that they got  _access_  to our comms channel is significantly worse than it sounds.”

“Because they found my place,” Jason says. “Which means not only do they know Bruce is connected to the bats, it means they know  _I’m_  connected. At this point we have to assume everyone in the immediate family is compromised.”

“What does that mean for us...?” Duke asks, looking nervous.

“Unclear,” Jason says. “Michael’s obviously compromised, because our opponent had access to the Order’s records. You and Stephanie might still be alright, and no one’s going to blame either of you if you want to tap out until this is all over.”

“No way,” Stephanie says, right as Duke says “Absolutely not.”

They exchange a glance, and Duke clears his throat.

“We didn’t get into this because it was going to be easy. If you guys are in danger, we want to help.”

“Are we in danger?” Barbara asks, and there’s a nervous silence.

“We have to assume we are,” Bruce says. “We have to assume that whoever is behind this means us harm. They’ve already killed several people. They’ve been following us. Just because they haven’t attacked us doesn’t mean we can assume they’re friendly.”

The silence feels like a physical weight.

“We need to start travelling in pairs,” Bruce says. “No one should be alone.”

“Easier said than done,” Duke says. “I can’t just have one of you sitting in on my classes.”

“You’re probably the safest,” Dick says. “Most of the activity’s been in Gotham.”

“Great,” Stephanie says. “Just what  _I_  needed to hear.”

“We need to go on the offensive,” Damian says. “Waiting for them to make their move makes us vulnerable.”

“We don’t have enough information to go on the offensive,” Tim protests. “We don’t know who they are or what they’re doing.”

“Do we have anything from Gordon? It’s been at least twelve hours,” Slade asks, glancing to Barbara.

“Uhm,” she says, rolling to the computer to start pulling files. “Very early findings. It was high priority because of the number of bodies. Most of them were killed in a single blow, but at least a few showed defensive wounds. Definitely overpowered quickly...”

She skims over the files as she chews on her lip, and Tim steps over, reaching down to give her shoulder a squeeze.

“Oh,” she says, leaning forward slightly. “This one’s different. They got stabbed through the side and the culprit just kind of... pulled the sword to the side. Cut them nearly in half.”

“That’s a lot of upper body strength,” Slade says.

“More than human?” Duke asks.

“No,” he says. “A human could do it if they knew what they were doing and used their momentum against their target. But it’s a highly skilled move.”

“It tells us one interesting thing,” Jason points out. “I kind of assumed we were dealing with someone with a knife, but that kind of injury means a  _sword_.”

“Are there pictures?” Damian asks, and Bruce feels relief when no one chides him for being overly eager to see a dead body. If Damian’s asking, it’s for a reason.

“Yeah,” Barbara says, pulling back from the computer. “They focused on the bodies with defensive wounds, because they’d have the most information.”

Everyone waits in silence as Damian flips through the photos, tilting his head back and forth as he looks over each injury.

“The assailant used a chokutō,” he says, a note of finality.

“A what?” Jason asks.

“Straight sword,” Slade says. “Single edge. Think a katana, but a bit shorter, and straight rather than curved.”

“Is that important?” Tim asks.

“Sure is,” Slade says. “That’s standard issue for all league members. It’s what you get trained with.”

The  _League of Assassins?_

“They’re supposed to be dead,” Bruce says, looking to Slade for an answer.

“The  _loyalists_  are dead,” Slade says. “The half the league that hired me in the first place aren’t.”

“Oh shit,” Jason says. “Are you telling me that this is the other half of the league?”

“Alright,” Dick says. “Let's walk through this step by step.” He glances to Tim, and Tim nods.

“We know the rebel half of the league hired Slade to stop Ra’s for good. We know they asked him to spare Damian, which Slade was happy enough to do. What else did they say?”

Tim glances to Slade, and so does everyone else.

“That he was supposed to be left unharmed,” Slade says.

“So we have options,” Dick says. “They might be here for Damian. Or they might be here for Ra’s head.”

“They were rebels,” Damian protests. “They would be happy that grandfather couldn’t be brought back.”

“Doesn’t mean they trust Slade with his head,” Barbara points out.

“We don’t know what they want with the kid either,” Duke points out. “They might want to...”

“To kill him,” Slade says. “You can say it.”

“To kill him,” Duke says. “Or they might just want him as a hostage.”

“Or to install him as the new head,” Jason says, and Bruce glances at Damian. He looks sour, deeply unhappy with the entire conversation. Bruce makes a point of resting a hand on his shoulder, and Damian seems to relax ever so slightly.

“A lot of bad things,” Slade says. “What are we going to do about it?”

Bruce tries to think. He knows almost nothing about the league’s current state. Ever since they left Gotham, he’s been out of touch. Slade probably knows more than him.

“Slade,” he says. “Who’s the current head of the League?”

“No idea,” Slade says. “Honestly, it didn’t seem like there were that many of them.”

“Who did you deal with?” Bruce asks.

“No idea,” he says. “They kept their face covered the whole time. It was a woman, though. Didn't try and hide her voice. Slim build. Definitely a trained fighter.”

None of that  _should_  mean anything. The League has plenty of female members, and almost all of them have  _slim builds_  and  _combat training_. But the answer slams into Bruce so suddenly that he hates himself for not making the connection earlier. For not figuring it out.

“Nyssa,” Bruce says.

“Who?” Jason asks immediately.

“Nyssa Raatko. Talia’s sister. She would be Damian’s aunt.”

Damian makes a face, but it isn’t the face Bruce expects.

“It’s not her,” Damian says. “She died years ago.”

“Death isn’t terribly permanent when it comes to your family, kid,” Slade says.

“Assuming she even died,” Bruce says. “If she rejected Ra’s, he might have said she was dead to keep Damian from asking questions.”

“She died,” Damian insists, but he no longer sounds certain.

“We need to go on the offensive,” Bruce says. “If it is her, we need to confront her directly before more people get hurt.”

“How do you propose we  _find_  her?” Dick asks. “Assuming it’s actually her, she’s a literal ninja. She could be anywhere.”

“We don’t know where she is,” Bruce says. “But she knows where we are. More importantly, we have a way to contact her.”

“You can’t tell me you’re going to just  _hail her on the communicator,_ right?” Slade asks, disbelieving.

“I mean,” Tim says, “it’s a long shot, but I don’t see a huge downside. The fact that we’re suddenly off comms means they’ll know we found out they have one. That element of surprise is already ruined. There’s not really a risk.”

Bruce steps over to the computer, linking to the comms channel as everyone goes silent.

He activates it and speaks.

“Nyssa,” he says, and then goes silent, waiting for a response.

If it’s not her, they won’t get anyone. If it is her... they still might not get a response. But it’s a chance he takes with almost no risk.

They stand in silence, waiting for  _something_. Anything.

“How long do we wait?” Dick finally says.

“This doesn’t rule her out,” Slade points out. “Just means she wasn’t willing-”

The computer speakers crackle to life.

“Bruce,” comes a voice that Bruce recognizes as  _unmistakably_  that of Nyssa Raatko.


	45. Chapter 45

It’s another lie. Another secret that Ra’s has kept from him. Damian’s eyes sink down to the ground, and Bruce reaches over, pulling Damian against his side and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“It’s been a while,” Bruce says.

“It has,” Nyssa agrees, and this time there’s no pause.

Bruce mouths  _can we track it_? to Barbara, and she shrugs, turning her attention to the computer to try and do just that.

“I assumed the league was keeping away from Gotham for a reason,” Bruce says.

“Let’s not waste time,” Nyssa says. “If you’re reaching out like this, it means you want something.”

“I want to know what  _you_  want,” Bruce says, careful to avoid giving too much away.

“Tricky as always,” Nyssa says, and her tone of voice tells Bruce she’s probably smirking. “How like you.”

“Let’s not waste time,” Bruce says, lobbing her words right back at her.

“Then I’ll cut to the chase,” Nyssa says. “You have something I want.”

Without meaning to, Bruce squeezes Damian’s shoulder.

“Funnily enough,” Bruce says. “You have something  _I_  want: you all out of Gotham. If the league tries to set up shop here, I’ll turn every single one of you over to the police.”

“Come now Bruce,” Nyssa says. “We were allies once. We could be again.”

“The league is still the league,” Bruce says. “No matter who’s running it.”

“We should speak face to face,” Nyssa says. “Bring the boy.”

Bruce’s fingers dig into Damian’s shoulder so hard that Damian actually shakes him off, perfectly silent as Bruce winces in sympathy, trying to get his anger under control.  _The boy_. Like he’s some kind of object.

Barbara catches his eye and mouths  _can’t track it_. Bruce makes himself take a nice deep breath, steeling his nerve.

“I want your word there aren’t going to be any surprise attacks,” Bruce says. Almost  _everyone_  in the room gives him a look of absolute horror, and Dick mouths something that looks a lot like  _you can’t trust her_.

“You have my word,” she says. “A daylight meeting would be inappropriate, so how about we meet atop Elliot Memorial Hospital at midnight?”

Bruce  _knows_  there was a Lazarus pit under there, and Bruce wonders if that’s the reason they chose it.

“Alright,” he says.

The line goes dead.

“Are you kidding me, Bruce?” Dick asks. “You can’t trust her. It’s a trap.”

“Nyssa’s a woman of her word,” Bruce says. “She was nothing but honest in the time I knew her.”

“Which was more than a decade ago,” Dick counters. “If you go out there, you’re putting yourself at risk. If you take Damian, you’re putting  _Damian_  at risk.”

“She is no threat to me,” Damian says immediately. “No matter how many men she brings.”

“You can’t go alone!” Dick yells, the panic in his voice. “She’s going to kill you!”

“I’m not going alone,” Bruce says. He feels... alright. Almost confident. For the first time since Duke first mentioned someone watching him, Bruce feels  _alright_. He has control of the situation. He knows what he’s doing. “Nyssa will bring her people. I’m going to bring mine. Everyone who’s willing, to make it clear that the league isn’t welcome in Gotham any longer.”

“I’m willing,” Stephanie says immediately. “I know I’m new, but Gotham’s our home.”

Duke shifts where he stands.

“Gotham’s not _my_  home,” he points out. “But what happens here bleeds over to Bludhaven, and I’m not going to abandon you guys.”

Bruce glances to Dick, and he folds his arms over his chest, huffing.

“Like I’m going to ditch you,” Dick says. “Even if I think you’re being an idiot.”

“Meeting them like this might be the only way we get to directly face them,” Slade points out. “So whether she’s going to betray us or not, this is our best chance.”

“Might I remind you all,” Alfred says, speaking for the first time, “that midnight is several hours away. May I recommend that you all return to your homes, collect your things, and return here for dinner?”

“Are we going to be able to fit all of us...?” Tim asks.

“We can if we use the big dining room,” Jason says. “North wing.”

“I might require some assistance to get things ready, but I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t fit everyone,” Alfred says with a pointed glance towards Jason.

“I want everyone moving together,” Jason says, ignoring the glance. “Travel in groups. Just because they said they’d meet with us tonight doesn't mean they’re not going to take the opportunity to grab someone and get some leverage on us.”

“I need to go out,” Slade says. “I’ll take Jason, and then we can come back and help Alfred with dinner.”

Bruce has his suspicions on what exactly Slade is going to get, but he keeps silent for Damian’s sake.

Even if he’s being reminded over and over again that Damian’s not just a child, and that he can handle death and violence... Ra’s was still his grandfather, and Damian doesn’t need to look at his decapitated head.

“I need to get our gear,” Dick says. “Kind of rushed out here, only have some of it with us, and this isn’t a  _some of our gear_  kind of situation.”

Bruce turns his attention to Michael. He’s been stoic and completely silent for the  _entire_  discussion. He’s not a teenager, but he  _is_  an odd man out. He deserves the right to opt out.

“Michael,” Bruce says. “If you’d prefer to-”

“No,” he says, interrupting. “Whether intentionally or not, this woman freed me from the order’s control. At the very least, I can face her and see what she has to say.”

It’s a strange thought, but Bruce accepts it anyway, nodding.

“Michael can come with us,” Tim says. “We brought two cars.”

As quickly as the house filled up, it empties out again. Bruce expects Barbara to bring up her father, but she’s silent on the issue. No doubt she’s thinking the same thing he is: that Gordon would absolutely  _not_  approve of them meeting with any portion of the League of Assassins.

“I’m going to go start preparation,” Alfred says. “If you have need of anything, Master Bruce, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Alfred heads up the stairs, leaving Bruce alone with Damian.


	46. Chapter 46

Bruce takes a seat, letting Damian sit down beside him before he says anything.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asks.

“They told me she had died,” Damian says, which simultaneously completely fails to answer the question while answering it perfectly.

“Were you close?” Bruce asks. He’s almost afraid of the answer.

Damian nods his head.

“She was... she was family,” Damian says quietly. “We mourned her. All of us. Grandfather said there wasn’t enough of her to bring back...”

Damian doesn’t cry. He’s upset, but there’s an undercurrent of  _anger_  there. Fury. That he was lied to by someone he trusted. That he spent years surrounded by his grandfather’s lackeys, isolated from the only member of his family he knew at the time.

Bruce lets him sit there until Damian pulls away, shaking his head.

“We should help Alfred,” he says. “He’ll need help.”

“He will,” Bruce agrees. “Are you sure you’re alright...?”

Damian doesn’t answer, but it’s obvious he considers the conversation done.

Bruce doesn’t, though.

“Damian,” Bruce says. “Before any of this happens, I want to be clear... I won’t let her take you. I’m not going to hand you over to them. No matter what they threaten or offer. Alright?”

Damian clicks his tongue.

“I did not expect you to, father,” he says, managing at least a decent impression of his usual bravado. “I would expect nothing less.”

Bruce is not particularly helpful when it comes to getting things ready. He’s done it before, but he always does it with  _help_ , and most of what he does ends up being moving things around under Alfred’s direction. Alfred doesn’t dare let him in the kitchen to actually help  _cook_ , and after the extra large dining room is opened up, aired out, and has all the chairs set up, there’s precious little for him to do.

Alfred banishes him to his office and tells him that Damian can help set the table.

He calls Lucius for lack of something better to do, and fills the time how he can. Even if he’s technically preparing for what should be a happy occasion--a full family dinner--he can’t stop himself from bracing for the worst. There’s a lot of ways things could go wrong. He might have misjudged Nyssa. For all he knows, Nyssa might not even be behind the whole thing.

Slade stops by his office with a black box in one hand. It’s maybe two feet by two feet, and the case is thick, durable plastic, intended to be banged around without breaking. Bruce is pretty sure it’s supposed to hold actual gear, but there’s no question what’s inside, and Bruce makes a face.

“Slade,” he says. “Why is it up  _here_?”

“Because if I leave it in the cave, Damian’s going to get into it,” Slade points out, stashing the box behind a potted plant that hides it from sight. “I’ll get it before we leave.”

Bruce absolutely does not like the idea of Ra’s al Ghul’s head sitting unattended in his office, but he’s certainly not going to bring it to dinner, so he leaves it there.

Tim comes back with Michael before anyone else, and Alfred sets the two of them to work, sending them out to pick up a few more things he’s run out of. He sets Jason to work cooking, and then kicks Slade out of the room as well.

Slade ends up pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He doesn’t  _ask_ , just pours Bruce another one, handing it over.

“I want to be sober for tonight,” Bruce says, and Slade pushes the glass into his hand anyway.

“You have more than six hours,” Slade points out. “If you can’t sober up from one glass of whiskey in six hours, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Bruce reluctantly takes the glass, giving it a taste.

Slade always  _did_ have good taste in alcohol.

He ends up dozing off by the time Alfred rings the dinner bell. He wasn’t even aware that Dick and Duke had arrived, but when he steps into the dining room there they are, laying out dishes.

“We’re doing family style,” Jason says. “Big serving bowls, you pass them around. I had to talk Alfred out of doing courses.”

Alfred puts on a show of being outraged, but it’s obvious he doesn’t mind.

“This is a relief,” Duke admits when they’ve settled in to eat, “because I do  _not_  do fancy dinners.”

“I mean,” Jason says, “neither do I, and I live here.”

“Don’t let him lie to you,” Tim says in a stage whisper to Duke. “Jason can be absolutely prim and proper if he wants to.”

“Of course,” Alfred says, taking his own place at the table once all the dishes are out. “I wouldn’t let any of the boys out of the house until they had proper table manners.”

“The boys,” Stephanie says in a hushed whisper. “Oh god, it  _is_  all boys, isn’t it?”

She gives a horrified look to Barbara at her side.

“How did we end up  _surrounded_  by so many boys?”

“You have no idea,” Barbara says. “When we started out, it was literally just me. Me and four boys. ...Four boys and I?”

No one comments on Barbara second guessing her grammar.

“So,” Bruce says, glancing to Duke, who seems to be the second most isolated person at the table. “How did you end up in the business?”

“I got mugged,” Duke says. “But I’d been taking self defense classes for years, so when they tried, I knocked them down. Turns out Nightwing was riiiiiight about to hop in and save me.”

“Duke saved himself,” Dick says. “So I asked him if he’d ever thought about saving other people.”

Stephanie has no problem fitting in at the table, and Duke’s warming up to them. It’s only the distance that keeps him at arm’s length.

It’s Michael that Bruce is most worried about. Michael, who looks to be about his own age, but who has barely said a word. He looks like he doesn’t know what to say, and Bruce suspects it’s the lack of a life outside of his vigilante activities.

He almost asks Tim how things went with Cash, but doesn’t want to bring up a sore subject if it went poorly.

Bruce is on almost the far end of the table from him, so instead of shouting he catches Slade’s eyes, darting them over to Michael. Slade gets the hint, and he engages Michael in a quiet conversation that Bruce can’t quite hear on the far end of the table.

The food is as good as it always is, and everyone seems to  _mostly_  be getting along. But there’s an obvious tension in the room, an undercurrent that makes it impossible to forget why they’re there, having dinner in the manor as one big group.

It’s dark outside when Jason clears his throat.

“I think we all need to suit up,” Jason says. “And run over the plan. Get ready to go.”

“I’m going to work out of the cave,” Oracle volunteers. “Hopefully with Alfred’s help.”

“Of course,” Alfred says. “I’ll be on hand to provide any assistance you need.”

There’s no question of if Bruce is going to be in the field or not, but they take things slow. Everyone suits up at an absolutely glacial pace. Damian’s the only one unaffected, getting into his costume in record time.

“Alright,” Bruce says. “We have time to kill. But let's get there early and make sure there’re no surprises.”

They descend into the city, and this time, they leave no one behind. They are nothing more than spots of black on the Gotham skyline, punctuated by flashes of color. The blue of dick’s suit. The yellow of Duke’s. The white of Azrael’s costume. Stephanie’s blond hair.

Oracle goes with them, her voice in their ears, carried by new communicators.

For what may be the last time, Bruce Wayne is Batman, and Gotham welcomes him home.


	47. Chapter 47

Elliot Memorial Hospital is an old building. It is, as far as Bruce can tell, the perfect place for Nyssa to host the meeting. It stands alone, tall enough that the roof is almost impossible to glide to, and the activity  _within_  the building makes scaling it without being spotted difficult. Getting off the roof is easy. Getting up there is hard.

Or it would be if Bruce hadn’t scaled that one single building more than a hundred times. The same traits that make it such a desirable meeting spot are the same reasons that Bruce chose it as a training ground years ago. Almost everyone in his party has scaled it multiple times, and when Duke whistles upon seeing it, Bruce decides that Dick’s probably brought him all the way out here just to carry on the tradition.

“Shrike,” Bruce says. “I want you close to me.”

Damian doesn’t protest, nodding once as he moves closer to Bruce. They haven’t started scaling yet, having taken up position on a second story roof as they observe the hospital for movement. It’s mostly low buildings, which limits their options severely. His  _usual_  strategy would be to get at least halfway up before scaling, but that isn’t an option.

“How are we getting up?” Slade asks, surveying the building. “Just going up the sides?”

“You guys are idiots,” Jason mutters under his breath. “We’re not going to scale the side of a giant building just to meet some ninjas at the top. We’re going to walk in the side door and ask for roof access.”

“ _What_?” Dick asks. “Are you kidding me?”

“We’d be wide open if we went up the side,” Jason says. “There’re too many of us for any more than two or three of us to go up at a time. Roof access is the only way.”

“Has it occurred to you that someone might  _call the cops_?” Dick asks.

“Sure,” Jason says. “But they probably won’t, and it’s a way better idea than  _let's spider crawl our way up the side of the building_.”

“This is the part where we cash in some of the goodwill we’ve collected, right?” Steph says. “Who’s going?”

Bruce doesn’t see how it’s even a question, and turns his head to Jason.

Jason huffs.

“I’ll go,” he says. “I’ll signal when I get an answer.”

He hops off the roof they’re perched on, gliding towards the EMT entrance of the hospital.

There’s something surreal about watching Batman walk into the side door in full costume.

“This is weird,” Tim says, saying what everyone’s thinking.

Bruce is already counting the seconds since Jason vanished from sight, and he’s sure Slade’s doing the same as he leans against the edge of the roof, watching the door.

The minutes tick by, and then Jason leans out the door, signaling for them to come.

They go single file, eight silent figures hopping off the roof and heading for the open door where Jason stands.

There’s no less than six people in the hallway, with two more craning their necks around the corner to see when they get inside. They're looking back and forth, observing each of the masked figures in front of them, and Bruce notes Slade shifting his weight to hide the heavy bag on his back. It’s cramped with so many, but Jason looks perfectly composed.

“Steven here is going to take us up to the roof,” Jason says, gesturing to a man wearing a badge that says  _security_. “Everyone else is just here to gawk.”

One of the gawkers, a doctor, clears her throat.

“The hospital’s not at any risk, right?” She asks, glancing between Bruce and Jason as if unsure of who to speak to.

Bruce lets Jason answer.

“No,” Jason says. “It’s just a particularly high vantage point.”

“If we stick around too long, we’re going to draw attention,” the guard says, and they’re quickly ushered into a service elevator.

It’s a  _very_  tight fit.

The elevator only gets them near the top, and then they have to wind their way up a set of stairs that looks like it sees almost no use.

“Who uses this?” Tim asks.

“Smokers,” the guard says. “Who aren’t supposed to be up here. But it’s been empty all evening. We’ve got people watching.”

“Cameras on the roof?” Slade asks.

The guard shakes his head.

“Not in the budget. That’s why smokers aren’t supposed to be up there.”

The guard pauses as they reach the top, revealing a door that looks locked right until Tim reaches down, twisting the lock in place. It’s  _attached_  to the door, but it’s not actually closed.

“Listen,” the guard says. “If you guys need to get up here or anything... you just let us know, alright? Everyone on security’d be happy to help.”

“Of course,” Jason says. “We’ll let you know.”

The guard surveys them, briefly squinting at Damian, before deciding that whatever’s going on, he doesn’t want to be near it and heading back down the stairs.

“Knight first,” Jason says. “No offense, but if someone’s getting stabbed, I’d rather it be the person who can shrug it off.”

Bruce is content to let Jason handle the moment to moment tactics. He has a gift for it, and he’s had  _plenty_  of training. Slade’s the obvious first-man-in, but Jason neatly divides things up, organizing their team by their strengths in a hushed whisper.

Bruce holds his breath as Slade goes through the door. Even if he wants to believe Nyssa’s good to her word, that doesn’t mean the rest of the League is.

But there’s no attack as Slade reaches the center of the roof, spinning in a circle to take it all in.

“Clear,” he calls.

They stream out onto the roof, faltering just past the entrance when Damian throws his hand out. He’s silent as he gestures, and Bruce doesn’t  _see_  anything.

Slade obviously does, because he goes stiff.

And then the shadow itself seems to unfold, revealing what is  _absolutely_  a member of the League of Assassins. Their face is hidden, but Bruce is fairly sure it’s not Nyssa. They’re a little bit too short, the body shape all wrong. This is someone else.

“Through the building?” Comes a voice from behind them, and Bruce turns to find Nyssa standing just over the doorway they just went through.

More and more shadows start to move as members of the league reveal themselves. In the darkness, with only a single light beside the door they came through, the shadows are long and deep.

Slade shifts, putting himself between the nearest assassin and Damian, and everyone else shifts to accommodate. They form a lose circle around Bruce and Damian, standing shoulder to shoulder facing outwards.

There have to be at least two dozen assassins, but Bruce doesn’t waver. Any one of his people is worth a dozen members of the league.


	48. Chapter 48

Bruce takes a deep breath, and Damian hovers just to his right, staring up silently at the woman perched just above them. She isn’t alone--there’s another figure beside her, and two more just behind  _them_. There are a  _lot_  of people on the roof, and Bruce wonders if this is all there is. Is this the full reach of the league?

If so, they’ve fallen a long way.

“It seemed more polite,” Bruce says. “Rather than sneaking up the side of the building.”

The fact that they’re both almost two hours early goes unremarked upon. It’s an inevitability when both sides are trying to get ahead of the other.

“Why don’t we get down to business?” Nyssa asks, making no move to actually  _get down_. She’s taking full advantage of her position, making Bruce literally crane his neck to look at her. 

“You’ve killed people in Gotham,” Bruce says.

“Not anyone who would be missed,” Nyssa says. “The Order of Saint Dumas were doing nothing to help the city. For all their claims of  _helping_  Gotham, they’ve done precious little towards that.”

Bruce sees Michael tense out of the corner of his eye, but Tim’s already there, leaning in to say something to him, voice so quiet even Bruce can’t hear it.

“We don’t kill,” Bruce says.

“ _You_  don’t kill,” Nyssa says. “I have made no such oaths, and will not hold myself to them. The Order attempted to intervene when we returned to Gotham, and so they were removed. The only reason they existed as long as they did is because they were so powerless that my father did not consider them a threat.”

“We aren’t here to talk about Ra’s,” Bruce says, and Nyssa laughs.

“I think we are,  _detective_ ,” she says, her tone so close to Ra’s that it’s like the man himself has come back to life. “Ra’s is as much a part of this as he is.”

She nods to Damian where he stands at Bruce’s side, and Bruce instinctively reaches over, resting a hand on Shrike’s shoulder. He’s silent, staring up at Nyssa, and his face gives away nothing.

Bruce thinks Damian might be reacting even less than  _he_  is.

“Regardless of the  _how_ , it seems he’s found his way to your side, and you’re aware of your relationship,” Nyssa says.

Bruce isn’t sure she realizes it, but it tells him something important: she doesn’t know the  _how_. The only way she couldn’t know  _how_  Damian reached him is if she has no idea of his connection to Slade. She might not even know Deathstroke’s real name. She hasn’t connected the dots between the two.

Bruce fears he’s going to have to use that oversight.

“Yes,” he says. “And we have the other thing you want as well.”

Slade waits until Bruce signals, and then shrugs the bag off his back. He doesn’t  _open_  it, just holds it in his arms. It’s not the thick black case he left in Bruce’s office. This is smaller, more compact.

Right about the size of a human head.

Nyssa’s eyes narrow, and she glances between it and Bruce’s face, her lips set in a grim line.

“You are incorrect,” Nyssa says. “His body has already been fed to the vultures, his bones crushed and scattered. As powerful as the Lazarus pit is, it couldn’t return someone from just a head. Ra’s al Ghul is dead for good.”

Bruce tightens his grip on Damian’s shoulder, but he doesn’t rise to the obvious taunt. His face is impassive beneath the domino mask, unchanging. Beside them, Slade slings the bag back onto his back to keep his arms free.

“Then tell us what you’re after,” Bruce says. Damian. The answer is Damian. But there’s a lot of different possibilities for  _why_  she wants Damian. He needs to know  _exactly_  what her intentions are before he can try and work against them.

“I’m here for Ra’s heir,” she says. Her eyes are still on him, never shifting to Damian. She’s not even talking  _to_  him. She’s just ignoring him.

“I have no intention of handing him over,” Bruce says, and Nyssa laughs again.

“Tell me, Bruce,” she says. “How much did you pay Deathstroke for him? I’ll happily compensate you.”

Bruce is  _sure_  Jason’s seething under the cowl, but he keeps his cool, as stoic as the rest of them.

“I don’t buy  _or_  sell people,” Bruce says. It doesn’t need to be said. Not really. Nyssa’s trying to get a rise out of him.

“Oh, did you prefer to think of it as paying a ransom?”

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Duke’s hands clench, and Bruce realizes it’s only a matter of time before  _one_  of them snaps. 

“Let me say it clearly for you, Nyssa,” Bruce says. “Damian is staying with me. He’s not going back to the league, no matter what your intentions for him are.”

“Doesn’t he get a say, Bruce?” Nyssa says, raising her eyebrows. “Has it occurred to you that before you put him in a costume and paraded him around Gotham that he spent  _years_  with me?”

It has. It’s occurred to Bruce a lot. But this isn’t a situation where Bruce can sit down and let Damian choose. Going back to Nyssa means going back to the league. It means a life of training to kill. It means undoing every bit of progress Damian’s made.

Even if Nyssa’s the fairest of the al Ghuls, she’s still one of them.

Bruce doesn’t get a chance to say no.

“AuntNyssa,” Damian says, his tone almost reverent. “I was told that you had perished.”

“He finally speaks,” Nyssa says. “And here I thought your  _father_  forbid you to.”

“I bit my tongue to allow my elders to speak,” Damian says.

The way he speaks feels so much more stiff and formal than usual, which is saying something. Bruce suspects the conversation would be happening entirely in Arabic if Damian wasn’t making a point of having it in English.

“It does not suit you, grandson of the demon.”

“It does not suit  _you_ , Aunt Nyssa, to play at being loyal to my grandfather and his ways.”

Tim makes a noise that gets covered up by a cough, and Nyssa’s eyes slide over to him as he shifts his head, obviously trying to hide a grin.

“Aunt Nyssa,” Damian says, stealing her attention back. “I have no intention of going with you.”

Bruce feels a surge of pride, but it doesn’t last. Nyssa’s eyes flick to him, and Bruce goes perfectly still.

“You will soon not have a choice,” she says. “Bruce. You know what I’m here for. You have my word he will not be harmed.”

“He stays,” Bruce says, but he knows there’s something else coming. She  _knows_  that a no isn’t going to stop her.

“I’ll make this easy for you,” Nyssa says. “You can hand him over, or I can burn your lives down. I know your identity, Bruce. I know your children’s identities. It would be so,  _so_  easy to let people know all about them.”

Bruce opens his mouth to say  _he stays_ , but stops himself.

It’s not that easy. It isn’t just  _his_  life. It’s the lives of every single person around him. It’s Dick and Jason and Tim. It’s all the people they know. Even if there’s almost no chance Nyssa knows who Duke and Stephanie are, the fallout will hit them to.

“If you think I’m going to hand Damian over to you, you’re fucking delusional,” Jason snaps, and it feels like a dam has broken.

“Absolutely no way-” Tim says as Steph chimes in with “he’s a goddamn kid”, and then Dick’s saying something  _extremely_  rude about what Nyssa can do with her suggestion.

Bruce listens for each individual voice as they overlap, and he finds each and every one. Michael’s is a soft  _I stand with them_ , and Duke’s is a solid  _absolutely not happening_.

Slade’s the only one who hasn’t spoken. He waits until last, until everyone else has said their piece.

“I have to say,” Slade says. “That sure sounds like a whole lot of ‘go fuck yourself’ to me.”

Despite how serious the situation is, Bruce catches himself smiling.

“I have no intention of going with you,” Damian says again. “I will stay here, with my father. With my family.”

Nyssa draws her sword from its sheath, pointing it directly at Damian. He stands his ground, but Slade inches to the side, ready to react if Nyssa throws it.

“Then you have my blessing,” she says.

Bruce can’t decide if that’s his cue to start breathing again until Nyssa lowers her sword.

“I would have preferred you take your place along the league, nephew,” she says. “But you have chosen fairly. You have claimed your  _other_  birthright, and if that satisfies you, then so be it. But your place within the league will  _always_  be available, should you choose to take it.”

“I will keep that in mind, aunt Nyssa,” Damian says. “But I have no plans to claim it.”

“Then I will leave Gotham in your hands,” Nyssa says. “The league needs a new path, and remaining in Gotham will only put us at odds with one another. You have my word we will not disturb you here. Nor will we bother you or your...” Her eyes sweep across the gathered figures. “...family.”

Bruce finally decides it’s safe to start breathing again.

“But,” Nyssa says, and Bruce regrets the thought. “The slight against my family's honor will not be tolerated. We will hunt down Deathstroke, who turned my nephew into little more than chattel, and I will see to his death myself.”

Nyssa’s personal guard balls their hands into fists, and there’s a general sense of agitation from the remaining members of the league. They’re ready to fight, and it’s only  _years_  as the Batman that keeps him from shifting his eyes over to where Slade stands less than two feet away.

He didn’t need to bother.

The Gotham Knight reaches up, pressing the faceplate release on his helmet, and the entire thing lifts up to reveal his face. Nyssa’s eyes widen immediately, and then narrow into a glare, her lips pressed in a thin line. Beside her, Nyssa’s guard goes for their swords.

“Deathstroke,” Nyssa says. “To think you stood with them...”

“I didn’t sell them your nephew,” Slade says. “I brought him back to his father, where he was  _supposed_ to be.”

There’s a brief exchanged glance between Nyssa and her second in command, and none of the members of the league seem to know quite what to do.

“Aunt Nyssa,” Damian says. “You swore you would not harm me or mine.” He slides his eyes over to where Slade stands. “So your quest for revenge has already ended.”

There’s another glance exchanged, and Nyssa gives a small nod.

“I gave my word,” she says. “We will not seek vengeance.”

“Especially since there’s no evidence he actually  _did_  anything,” Jason says, sounding annoyed.

“...And that,” Nyssa admits.

Bruce can’t blame them for the misunderstanding, and Slade reaches up, snapping the faceplate back down.

“Uh,” Stephanie says, “are you not going to visit him? I mean, blood oaths and vengeance aside, he’s still your  _nephew_.”

Nyssa turns to her, and Bruce expects Stephanie to back down. She doesn’t, standing strong even while staring down the new head of the League of Assassins.

“No,” she says. “One day, my nephew may seek  _me_  out, but I have no place in Gotham any longer. I have no place in the life he is trying to build.”

Bruce understands why. The league can’t go anywhere without bringing along league problems. So instead, she leaves the door open. Gives Damian the option.

Damian seems to understand what she means, and he nods.

“We will take our leave,” Nyssa says, and she bows her head. “I leave Gotham in your hands.”

She turns, hopping off the side of the building like it’s nothing. The other members of the league begin to trickle away as well, following their new leader over the sides. Only Nyssa’s second in command lingers, standing atop the roof until the last of their people are gone.

Only then do they turn away, vanishing over the edge.

“...That was spooky,” Steph mutters.

“I want to know why all the al Ghul’s are so  _dramatic_ ,” Slade says. 

“Offense fully meant,” Slade adds when Damian glares at him.

Bruce wants to go home. He wants to go home with his family. With his sons. With his friends.

Damian reaches up, taking Bruce’s hand and giving it a squeeze.

“It’s alright, father,” Damian says. “I won’t go anywhere.”

Bruce gives Damian a small smile, squeezing his hand in return.

“I know,” Bruce says. “Now let's go home. Gotham can manage without us for a night.”


	49. Chapter 49

Gotham keeps, even if only for a night. There’s no patrol. The crime is left to the police, and for once, Gotham doesn’t burn down in their absence.

Alfred is waiting for them when they return to the manor. There’s food and snacks, but more than that: a sense of peace. So much of the tension that was in the air during dinner is gone.

Slade slips a glass of whiskey into his hand not long after they get home, and then slides into the crowd, probably to find Jason.

Bruce tries to find Damian first, but it mostly ends up being Damian finding  _him_.

“Father,” he says. “Did I do alright?”

Bruce has to admit that he finds it a lot easier when someone so clearly lays out their expectations. There’s no question of what Damian’s looking for. 

“Of course,” Bruce says, sinking down into the couch and letting Damian climb up beside him.

“I was worried you’d want to stay with her, you know,” Bruce admits, and Damian makes a face.

“Aunt Nyssa was always kind to me,” he admits, “but I like it here. I like being Shrike. I like staying with you.”

Damian doesn’t  _say_  it, but Bruce watches his eyes flick up, searching the room to find Jason before turning his attention back to Bruce.

“But I wanted to ask you something,” Damian says, and there seems to be less hesitance. Every time Damian asks for something and doesn’t get punished for it, it’s that much easier for him the next time.

“Yes?” Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow. He’s not sure what to expect. Permission to visit his aunt?

“Could we...” Damian hesitates, just for a moment, before soldiering on. “Could we have a funeral? I know you don’t like grandfather very much, but I... a grave would be nice.”

A grave. It’s a rare bit of sentimentality from a boy who was raised in a society with none.

“Of course,” Bruce says. He’s not sure how he  _really_  feels about it. Not really. But if having a place to visit his grandfather will help Damian, he’ll do it.

Bruce’s mind wanders to Talia. Does she have a grave? Nyssa didn’t mention her body, and Bruce suspects that the same thing that happened to her father happened to her. A sky burial. A scattering.

Bruce makes a note of that for later, and reaches out, pulling Damian into a hug.

“Of course,” Bruce says again. “I’ll set something up.”

His question asked, Damian darts away to find Jason, and Bruce hasn’t even managed to get off the couch when Dick sinks into the couch beside him, a cheeky grin on his face.

“So,” he says. “That went well.”

“No one’s dead or injured,” Bruce says. “So yes, that went pretty well.”

The look on Dick’s face is  _extra_  sneaky, and Bruce squints at him after a moment. That’s above and beyond Dick’s  _usual_  look. No, that’s his something-is-going-on-look.

He gives a quick glance around the room and spots nothing unusual.

“What?” Bruce asks, and Dick throws his hands up.

“Oh no,” he says. “Don’t go all detective on me. My lips are sealed.”

Which means it isn’t  _his_ secret, which narrows it down considerably. Bruce has his suspicions, but he sets them aside, just for the moment.

“You did a good job with Duke,” Bruce says. “He kept his cool, even in a situation that was well beyond what you trained him for.”

“I’d love to take credit,” Dick says, “but he was pretty much like that when I got him.”

“And I’m sure he came fully trained with those sticks of his too,” Bruce says, raising an eyebrow.

“Alright,” Dick says, “ _maybe_  that was me.”

“Take the credit where it’s due,” Bruce says. “You’re doing good things in Bludhaven.”

“Someone’s got to,” Dick says, stretching out in the most exaggerated manner Bruce can imagine. “The better Gotham gets, the more people decide to get out of dodge, and a lot of them decide to make a pit stop up with me.”

“If you need help...”

“I’m just fine,” Dick says, waving him off. “Already looking into recruiting. When things got messy, people in Gotham stood up to help, and the same’s happening on Bludhaven. They’re... encouraged by the example here, I guess.”

“They’re encouraged by  _you_ ,” Bruce points out. “Bludhaven’s only masked vigilante.”

“Not quite,” Dick says. “They’re starting to crop up.”

“I have to warn you,” Bruce says, as seriously as he can manage, “if you recruit too many people I’m not going to have enough room to host them all.”

Dick laughs at that, and Bruce stands up, patting him on the shoulder.

“You should talk to Damian,” Bruce says. “He doesn’t see much of you.”

“Comes with living out of town,” Dick says. “ _You_  should probably check in on the new guy.”

Dick’s eyes slide over to the side of the room, where Michael stands, the odd man out.

“Was planning to,” Bruce says, but he moves  _some point in the future_  to  _right then_  and heads over.

“Did you get a drink?” Bruce asks, holding up his own largely untouched glass as he reaches Michael.

Michael holds up a glass of what is almost definitely water with a nod. Not  _quite_  what he’d meant, but he’s not going to make anyone drink who doesn’t want to.

“How are you feeling?” Bruce asks.

“Like myself,” Michael says. “Or not like myself at all. I can’t tell.”

It’s an uncomfortable subject, but Bruce tries to steel his nerve. He knows what he’s getting into, he reminds himself. It’s different from being caught off guard, from looking at an x-ray of Michael’s skull and seeing all the trails of white.

He suppresses a shudder.

“It’ll come back,” Bruce says. “In time. You’ll feel more like yourself, and be more confident that the decisions you’re making are your own.”

“Timothy...” Michael starts, faltering before glancing to Bruce, and then back to his drink. “He said you would be the one to talk to about that.”

“Maybe,” Bruce says, “or I could find you someone who’s dealt with that sort of thing. A professional.”

Michael makes a face.

“I don’t have anything to confess.”

Bruce takes a second to realize what he means, and then shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “Not a member of the church. A therapist. A real professional.”

Michael makes a face again.

“I’m serious,” Bruce says. “I go. Most of us go, actually. If you find someone you can really trust, it can be... it can be good for you.”

Michael looks far from convinced, so Bruce decides to change the subject.

“Where are you living now?”

“The same apartment,” Michael says. “Batman said he would find me a new place. Help me find a job, when I was ready for it.”

Bruce nods.

“Jason has a lot of resources for that,” he says. “I’m sure he can find you something.”

For a moment, he considers asking if Michael plans to keep operating as Azrael, and then decides against it. He’s still operating right then. Maybe he’ll change his name, or maybe he’ll keep it, but either way it’s the one part of his life he feels actually  _confident_  about. Better not to disturb it.

“You should talk to Timothy,” Michael says abruptly, and Bruce glances over his shoulder to where Timothy stands, in the midst of a heated conversation with Stephanie and Barbara.

“You should talk to Slade,” Bruce says. “He’s out back, probably smoking.”

Michael nods, excusing himself, and Bruce is sure he’s happy to be away from the crowd.

Steph winks in Bruce’s direction and excuses herself as Bruce reaches Tim and Barbara, who pause their conversation to look over to him.

“So,” Bruce says, keeping his tone even and casual. “When are you due?”

Tim throws his hands into the air in mock outrage, and Barb laughs.

“I  _told_ you he’d find out,” Barbara says.

“Who snitched?” Tim demands. “Was it Dick? I bet it was Dick.”

“You did,” Bruce says. “Right now, when you confirmed it for me.”

Tim groans.

“How long did I live with you that I still fall for that?”

Bruce smirks at him.

“Too long. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“We’re just over three months,” Barbara says. “The doctor suggested we not tell anyone until we were done with the first trimester.”

“Bruce, I hope you realize we’ve been setting this up for like... months now. I have gifts. A mug. A shirt,” Tim says.

“He had a whoooole thing planned out,” Barbara said. “But now seemed like a better time.”

“We’ve discovered the horrifying world of batman merchandise,” Tim adds. “You would not  _believe_  the baby products with the cowl slapped all over it.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to buy them,” Bruce says.

“We’re considering it,” Barbara says. 

Bruce groans.

He offers his congratulations, makes them promise to keep him up to date, and then drifts across the room. Duke and Stephanie are in the midst of a hushed conversation, and they stop as he approaches them, glancing up.

“I thought I’d come over to let you know that you both did very well tonight. You didn’t have to put yourself--or your identities--at risk like that.”

“Of course we did,” Stephanie says pointedly. “We’d be pretty crummy bats if we were willing to hand a kid over to a secret society that calls itself the  _League of Assassins_.”

“Not particularly heroic,” Duke agrees. He seems awkward, and he keeps glancing towards Bruce.

“...Everything alright?” Bruce asks, suddenly wary.

“Oh, yeah,” Duke says quickly. “Just... You know. Feels a little bit surreal, coming all the way down to Gotham to sit down at a table with Batman.” He glances over towards where Jason stands, talking with Dick. “The Bat _men_.”

Bruce is happy for the correction.

“Batman,” he corrects. “I retired.”

“No one ever stays retired for long,” Stephanie points out, and Bruce smiles at that.

Maybe not.

He finds Jason a short while later, and Dick excuses himself to let them talk.

“You did a good job today,” Bruce says. “Good tactics. Good leadership. Going through the building rather than scaling the building was a good plan.”

Jason looks at him like he’s grown another head.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll bite. What do you want?”

Bruce makes an attempt to look offended by the accusation.

“I didn’t go through four years of therapy to be accused of buttering someone up.”

Jason squints even more. 

“...I meant what I said, Jason,” Bruce says. “I don't give compliments I don’t mean, but I realize my ability to... convey my feelings is still a work in progress.”

Jason eyes him for a moment, and then nods.

“I mean-” He starts, before cutting himself off, seeming to reconsider what he’s about to say. “Thanks,” he finally says. “It... it’s good to hear it.”

Bruce nods, clapping Jason on the back, and then glances around.

“I think I’m going to check in with the rest of the old men,” Bruce says. “They’re out back?”

Jason nods, and Bruce breaks away from the party to go find Slade.

He’s out back, with Michael having taken a seat beside him, and there’s a cigar at his lips, glowing in the night.

“Where do you even  _get_  those?” Bruce asks.

“At the  _store_ , Bruce,” Slade says. “Do you think I smuggle them in?”

“That’s a Cuban cigar,” Michael points out. “So technically someone did.”

Slade laughs at that, and Bruce takes a seat, settling down beside him.

“Do you think they’re really gone?” Michael asks.

“Nyssa’s a woman of her word,” Bruce says. “She’s got more morality in her left leg than the rest of the league combined.”

“Which still isn’t very much,” Slade points out.

“Enough to keep them out of Gotham,” Bruce says. “That’s all we need.”

“And you’re content to leave it like that?” Slade asks, raising an eyebrow. “At large?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed,” Bruce says, “but a large number of my allies were people I never would have tolerated before. I think it’s safe to say my tolerances have changed.”

Slade, yes. But Jason. Michael. He has a lot of people on his side with checkered pasts.

“What matters is how things are moving forward,” Bruce says. “Not how things were.”

“A nice enough sentiment,” Slade says. “But don’t mind me if I keep an eye out for the league.”

“Feel free,” Bruce says.

“I will keep an eye on them as well,” Michael says. “I realize I have... more time on my hands than most of you.”

“For now,” Bruce says. “I suspect Tim is going to put you to work shortly.”

“I would like that, I think.”

Michael excuses himself not long after, heading back inside and leaving them alone.

“Just the old men, now,” Bruce says. “Handing things off to the new generation.”

“Speak for yourself,” Slade says. “ _I’m_  not retiring.”

“You will,” Bruce says. “Give it a few more years. You’re already winding down.”

Slade laughs at the suggestion, but he doesn’t argue it either.


	50. Chapter 50

It takes almost two weeks, but in the end, they bury Ra’s al Ghul.

It isn’t the funeral Bruce wants. The funeral he  _wants_  is one for Talia, to finally lay her to rest. But there’s no body to bury, and Bruce can’t bring himself to bury an empty casket.

He learned a lesson long ago about empty graves.

There’s no way to bury the leader of the League of Assassins in a normal cemetery. He can’t just buy a plot for him without bringing too much undue attention. So instead Alfred finds a place on the grounds, a little spot far from the road, and they make a grave there.

It isn’t large. There’s no headstone. But they plant a pomegranate tree there, and that gives Damian a place to visit. It’s a connection to his family, a link back to the life he left behind.

Bruce wonders if Nyssa will come back, but she never does. She keeps her distance, and every so often Slade updates him on what the League is or isn’t doing.

Some of it’s good. Some of it’s bad. But the good outweighs the bad more often than not. It’s a change, but it’s a change for the better

Damian’s testing at school doesn’t get results. Damian’s testing only results in  _more_  testing, and Robinson Academy reluctantly admitting that he’s probably beyond their capabilities.

He ends up with a private tutor, filling in the few gaps in his knowledge. There’s talk of taking college classes, but Bruce is against it. Damian isn’t ready. He’s doing better, but he’s not  _ready_.

What he needs is people his age. What he needs is to be around people who are, for lack of a better term,  _normal_.

It’s easier said than done. Bruce spends days trying to come up with a solution. He takes Damian to the park. He takes him on field trips to museums and aquariums and stadiums. None of them really stick. None of them really get him interacting with people his own age. None of them really get him  _friends_. He attempts to sign Damian up to a baseball team in the local park, but Damian flat out refuses after he gets a little bit _aggressive during their first training match._

__

It’s going to have to be something entirely non-competitive, Bruce realizes.

__

It isn’t Bruce, or Jason, or even Slade that comes up with the answer. It’s Alfred, when he finds Damian down in the cave attempting to hide a puppy who he found in a dumpster during patrol.

__

Damian names the dog Titus, which sounds like a perfectly fine name to Bruce until Jason pulls out his old copy of Titus Andronicus and starts reading to Bruce about just what it was Titus  _did_. Bruce can’t say he approves of the symbolism, but by that point the name’s stuck.

__

“It’ll help Master Damian learn responsibility towards others,” Alfred points out, so the dog stays.

__

Alfred signs them up for dog training classes, and Alfred somehow manages to find the one class in the city composed entirely of children. 

__

Damian does end up making friends, but Bruce suspects he’s  _mostly_  making friends with their dogs.

__

By the time winter rolls around, Titus is nearly as tall as Damian himself.

__

Jason never quite ends up moving out. He talks about it a lot, but he never actually  _leaves_. Bruce suspects that a large part of that is that he  _likes_  being around Damian. He likes teasing him. He likes having Damian with him on patrol. 

__

He likes, more than anything, being a big brother.

__

Increasingly, Bruce finds that he  _likes_  being a father.

__

He likes having the boys around. He likes when Damian runs up to demonstrate some new skill he’s learned, or Jason tells him about a new book he’s read. He likes when Dick stops by to tell him all about the new protege he’s taken on (Bruce starts losing track). He likes when Tim and Barbara stop by, and he likes it when they leave Bruce’s one and only grandchild behind to go on date night too.

__

To Bruce’s immense surprise, Alfred is  _not_  actually fully qualified to care for a baby.

__

To Bruce’s even greater surprise, Slade  _is_.

__

“I swear,” Slade complains, a happily sleeping baby resting on his shoulder. “It’s like none of you have ever dealt with kids before.”

__

“He screams every time I hold him,” Bruce protests.

__

“That’s because you’re holding him like a sack of potatoes,” Slade chides. “Like this.” He takes Bruce’s arm, arranging it before carefully laying the baby into the crook of Bruce’s arm. “Support the head with your hand.”

__

This time, the baby doesn’t cry, shifting in place to curl against Bruce’s chest.

__

“See?” Slade asks. “Easy.”

__

Gotham gets better, bit by bit. The crime rate sinks. The gangs get less and less aggressive, attempting to race to the very bottom of Batman’s list of targets. Eventually, they reach the point where even Michael, who once patrolled the streets of Gotham each and every night as Azrael, gets a job. Jason makes him security at a shelter, and finds him a place to live nearby.

__

Michael adjusts. Sometimes he talks about putting away the suit forever, but he never actually does.

__

Neither does Bruce. Not really. The cowl stays on display down in the cave, untouched and unworn. But Bruce can’t quite make himself retire. In the end, he always winds up back down in the cave, listening to the chatter over the comms until he knows everyone’s home safe.

__

Until they’ve all come home.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are, at the end again. I wanted this to have a satisfying ending, where people could stop if they'd like. There will be a sequel (which is, in theory, intended to be the last of this 'trilogy') which will focus most heavily on Bruce, Slade, Jason, and Damian as the primary dynamic.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's read along while this was being published, to everyone who reads it now that it's finished, and especially to everyone who leaves comments!
> 
> I have started a DC specific sideblog on tumblr at [Please Save Jason Todd](https://pleasesavejasontodd.tumblr.com/), but if you've got any requests or anything, please let me know!


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